A/N: Hey all…this is something that I've started for the 30 Kisses challenge over at livejournal. Basically, you're given thirty themes (this one is 10: the number ten) and you write something for each theme. Therefore, this fic will eventually have thirty some chapters. ;; I have no idea how I get into these things.
Konomi owns them, not me. Concrits will give you a special place in my heart. 3
Thirty days have September,
April, June, and November
Have September
Prologue: #10
The restaurant is in a part of town Kirihara rarely goes to, if he can help it: Shibuya, with its fashion shows that carry on right there, in the streets. The girls who shop there wear too much makeup, blackening their eyelashes, turning their lips cotton candy pink, burning their hair until it lies flat and dead across their foreheads. Their skirts are sometimes see-through and unavoidably short.
It always feels as if everyone is looking in Shibuya- taking mental notes on his measurements, like they're getting ready to sew him into something chic and scandalous, on the spot. The idea makes him nervous. Whenever he can, Kirihara takes the subway and passes right under Shibuya, even if it means an extra two hundred yen. And when that fails, he walks quickly, clutching the front of his jersey with a red tint in his eyes that dares anyone to try to put him in a belt.
That grip is a death grip, and it hasn't loosened in an hour; not when they were shown to the table and everyone took off their coats; not when they sat down; not when the meat and vegetables arrived, and Marui-sempai arranged everything flawlessly on the grill. He won't let go- not even for yakiniku. They'll have to pry this jersey off him with the Jaws of Life.
Yakiniku is one of Kirihara's favorites, information that the team probably coaxed out of Yanagi-sempai; but today, he doesn't taste it as much as process it. Jackal-sempai, sitting at his right, seems to realize something is wrong by the way he forces endless rounds of karubi down Kirihara's throat. But mostly, everyone is content, oblivious, filled with good meat and still giddy from yesterday's tournament win.
"Think they'll let us get sake here?" Niou asks, inevitably, invariably- he always asks, every time they go out like this. Even at McDonald's, he asks. They all know he doesn't mean it, and Sanada-buchou's reaction is always the same. The crease between his eyebrows will deepen, and with utter dignity, he will look Niou in the eye and reply, "Sake is not to be carelessly consumed."
Wait for it, thinks Kirihara, watching idly and gnawing on a piece of beef. Down the table, Sanada fixes Niou with a stare that makes freshmen drop like flies beneath the sun. Wait for it- buchou's anal like that- it's coming-
Sanada's eyes flicker towards Kirihara before he turns away. "I'll ask," he says, rising to go find a waitress.
Half an hour later, all the blood is gone from Kirihara's knuckles and half the team is drunk.
The knuckles, he is sure of- where his fingers disappear into the creases of his jersey, he can't feel them anymore, when at first he could count his heartbeat in each digit.
But he can't tell if they're really drunk, Niou and Jackal and Marui-sempai. The waitress wouldn't bring any sake at first. She's almost young, but by the coarseness of her hands and the way she sags, all over, you wouldn't think so. Sanada-buchou took her aside and mentioned "farewell party" in a low voice; whispered it, or tried. Even buchou's whispers carry. Standing with a menu clutched to her breasts, the woman cast a pitying look towards Kirihara's place as the guest of honor, and hesitated.
That was when Marui-sempai stomped on his foot under the table.
Hard.
Hard enough that it crunched. Kirihara nearly inhaled his meat, but there was no time to react to that- Niou was mouthing "Do it, do it, do it, SAKE, come ON" and Marui wiggled his fingers in a slightly threatening wave.
So Kirihara scowled at them, then composed himself. Uncurled his toes. Looked up at the woman, batted his eyelashes, and smiled with all the charm he could muster.
One look and she was a goner.
After she'd allowed them a single round, for toasts, she brought Kirihara a little cake- the pale and spongy kind, tasting a bit like almonds. She kissed the top of his head and told him he was just like her son.
Kirihara waited until she was out of earshot before announcing loudly that he was allergic to almonds, and surrendered the cake to Marui.
Then Sanada-buchou made a speech. A minute after he'd finished, Kirihara forgot what it was about, what was said. But he can still picture it- buchou standing with his back frighteningly straight, as serious as a general toasting the impending death of one of his men. Sanada had his hat off, held tightly at his side by one hand.
In that moment, his grimness was contagious- they all got caught up in it, and a sort of stillness came over the table. Kampai, they'd cried, draining their cups, and they looked at Kirihara as if he was sacrificing his life for the cause.
It was over quickly; the feeling has gone away. They're all laughing again, at Marui-sempai, who is pretending to be dramatically drunk. He clings to Yagyuu-sempai with starry eyes, and Yagyuu pushes him away, convincingly scornful, but smiling. Rejected, Marui wastes no time, grabbing at Niou-sempai instead, and the two of them start up on the chorus of an old drinking song.
Kirihara takes the chance to excuse himself to the toilet.
A hand grabs his ankle just as he is climbing through the bathroom window. A drunken hand- lazy grip at first- easy to kick off. Marui-sempai falls against the bathroom wall, making the picture frames jitter on their hooks.
"Aka-chan!" And boy, doesn't Marui-sempai look so delighted to see him? His hair, fashionably mussed, dyed that red, like a girl's- the kind of girl that would like Shibuya, the kind that Kirihara hates-
"Fuck off, sempai," Kirihara snarls, pulling himself up on the table again. He knocks off a vase in the process, with some wild jerk of his arm, and it falls- ceramic, he realizes a second before it hits the floor and shatters. The tenth thing he has broken today. The first thing was a pencil- the second was the stereo in his father's car- and the last, he suspects, will be his pride.
"Come down now, okay? Tell Marui-sempai-"
That is when Kirihara stops listening. Just stops, not wanting hear another word. He is leaving Rikkai, not dying- but everyone is saying goodbye and telling him to do things- to not forget his old teammates, to return his jersey, to behave, please behave, won't you? And he has put up with it, biting his tongue, but something snaps- he feels suddenly ill, his head pounding, and his hands are too numb.
He hates it, so he kicks Marui-sempai in the face.
The tenth thing he broke was the vase; the eleventh thing is Marui-sempai's nose.
This is the part in movies, Kirihara thinks, or video games- yeah, video games- the part when you make a getaway. There is a three-step process to winning the kind of video games he likes: one- shoot to kill, two- hightail it, three- save the world from zombies.
He peers out the window, crouched in it and leaning out into the city. Behind him, Marui-sempai is muttering, trying to stop the blood that is trickling down his jaw and dripping off the point of his chin. Success. Now for step two.
"You're good at being drunk," Kirihara tells him in a low voice. Marui glares back; he's recovering now, so Kirihara braces himself, leaning a little further out the window, and Marui balks-
"Are you crazy? Get down, this is the third story!"
Kirihara looks down with his hands clutching the window frame, and pushes his head out as far as he dares. The alley below is pitch dark, but the street is only meters away, lit with neon and, if he strains his neck to see them, faces and headlights. It's chilly outside, nearly autumn now. The end of September. "Wish I'd brought my jacket," he mutters, shivering as he remembers where he slung it across the back of his chair.
"What?"
Kirihara grins, and wonders, what'll you do if I lean out even further? So he does, a little bit at a time- all the color bleeds from Marui's face, and he swings forward-
Hah! "Too slow, Marui-sempai!"
Kirihara whoops, throws out his arms, and jumps into the Shibuya air.
-
Marui's heart stops for a full ten seconds: ten beats of horrific silence, during which he ONE tells himself he'll never play drunk, TWO he'll never cheat at tennis, THREE he'll never pick on FOUR his brothers again He goes numb in every one of his limbs, FIVE unable to count a single SIX heartbeat
SEVEN. EIGHT. Nine-
Ten.
Kirihara lands on the fire escape stairs, the story below, on all fours. Marui watches as he dusts himself off, looks up- seeing Marui there, he sticks out his tongue to its roots, then begins to clamber down the ladder. Soon he is gone, around a corner, clutching at his chest the same way Marui himself is- as if his heart is having trouble reviving.
Eventually, the pulse returns. Marui takes out a stick of gum and begins to chew furiously by the window. His eyes follow Kirihara's figure until it disappears, melting into Shibuya, and even a little after, until his gum looses its taste and it hardens. Only then does he close the window. A little while after, he spits out his gum and leaves.
It is the last of Kirihara he'll see for awhile.
-