Aoi Takuma is the main character from the second movie. I included him because I had a feeling if he and Shogo ever met, they'd probably get along something like this.
Enjoy some happy AU drunken shenanigans, because these guys deserve some light-hearted humour.
It had been a bad idea from the start. If it hadn't been such a big celebration, he wouldn't have bothered attending at all. However, Noriko, Nanahara and Shinji had all asked him to come, and considering that it was a rather big party to commemorate more than one event, he reasoned that if he attended this particular party, he could skip the next several.
This party was a joint birthday party, for the three people in the room whose birthdays all happened to fall around the same time of year; it had been reasoned by their friends (read: Shuya Nanahara) that three smaller parties wouldn't be as memorable as a single big one. Therefore, Noriko Nakagawa, Aoi Takuma and Yutaka Seto had agreed to this celebration – two eagerly, one grudgingly since he didn't care for such things.
This party in and of itself was fine; even if it wasn't his sort of thing, a bit of socialising couldn't do much harm if it was just for a few hours. He wasn't otherwise occupied and he had no medical excuse to use to get out of it. Keiko had made it clear he needed to do something that wasn't work or lounging around the apartment hacking into various government websites for his own amusement, for the sake of his own social skills if nothing else ("After all, it's Noriko's birthday party. You wouldn't let her down would you?") and Shogo had discovered that since they moved in together, refusing Keiko's wishes was likely to end up with him sleeping on couch for several nights.
He would just get through it, like he had so many other things. After all, nothing could be worse than Shinji's party last summer, when the police had to come and break up the festivities and Nanahara and Nobu had to run halfway across town, dodging police cars to hide the alcohol Shinji had wanted to distribute.
After witnessing such a spectacle, Shogo was fairly certain that, by sheer comparison, this party would be tame enough. There weren't even that many people attending: the guest list was himself, Shinji, Nanahara, Noriko, Nobu, Hiroki, Takuma, Takako, Keita and Yutaka. He assumed it would be fairly safe.
Had he known that his assumption would be entirely wrong, he would have never turned up, their little feelings be damned.
Shogo had received three separate invitations to this event held at the Nakagawa residence (since apparently Noriko's brother was on a school trip for the weekend and her parents abroad for some reason Shogo didn't bother to pay attention to) and not one of them had deigned to mention that this so-called innocent get-together of high school friends would involve a large quantity of alcohol. He had been under the impression that none of the people there, save maybe for himself, Shinji and surprising enough Takako, had any real experience with drinking. He was correct; as it turned out, many of the party-goers had never really consumed alcohol before, and this was to be their first proper drinking party.
Although he hadn't been aware of it until the various bottles were produced, Shogo quickly understood that, since this was the day when Takuma - the youngest attending - would turn eighteen, it would be a 'good idea' for alcohol to be involved - even though Shogo was pretty sure he was the only one in attendance of the legal drinking age.
He knew he couldn't prove it, but somehow he could read 'Shinji Mimura' all over this situation.
Shogo was honestly surprised, not that he would ever admit it, to see all the people he supposed he could consider friends firing into the alcohol quite so eagerly. It was quite the sight to witness: Nanahara and Nobu fighting over who got to have the first drink of the sambuka, Noriko trying to mix the contents of her drink to perfection, Shinji hovering over both Yutaka and Hiroki until the two had each taken a drink. Shogo wondered if he should step in, but decided against it. It would do them all some good to get drunk and suffer the consequences. Most people would do it at some point in their lives - Shogo's had been particularly embarrassing - and it was better to do it when they were young and learn their lesson then.
Now the awkward thing for Shogo Kawada was this: he couldn't drink alcohol. Well, he could actually - he was very good at holding his liquor by this point from a lot of life experience - but he was on a temporary ban. It was for this reason he believed Keiko had no idea what this party was going to turn out to be because she had threatened him that should he get drunk at this particular party he wouldn't have to worry about liver disease because she would kill him personally when he inevitably turned up on their doorstep drunk off his ass. As he, despite popular belief, actually respected his girlfriend and was more than willing to abide her wishes, that left Shogo the sole sober person in the room.
On one hand, it was great; everyone else could make a fool of themselves and he could have the pleasure of telling them all the next day about their own humiliation without any reason to worry about his own. On the other hand, it meant that, later in the evening when everyone else had had a little too much happy juice, he was the only one in a fit state to deal with a bunch of drunken idiots.
Although not all of them had intended to get themselves into that state. He was fairly certain that Shinji had spiked Yutaka's drink several times, and that Nanahara had done the same to both Takuma and Hiroki. Either way, it all led to the same conclusion: he was left to take care of a bunch of drunken idiots.
Not so very long ago, he would have just walked away and left them all to it, since it was their own faults. However, since he'd been dragged kicking and screaming into this little group of hyper-positive morons, Shogo possessed new morals and self-standards, and these damn things would not allow him to retire guilt free, leaving those idiots to their own devices.
Inwardly thinking that he would make them – each and every one of them – pay individually for subjecting him to this, Shogo resigned himself to his fate and set about getting them all to settle down for the night.
He would later think to himself how they had all handled their drunkenness in a different way, some far more easily than others.
Hiroki was probably the easiest to deal with. It appeared that despite the man's massive size, he was not someone capable of holding their liquor to any degree. After his fifth (spiked) drink, he just kind of flopped and collapsed onto the sofa, sound asleep and snoring. Shogo turned him onto his side to ensure that the guy wouldn't vomit and choke, but otherwise had left him be.
Unsurprisingly to the male party-goers, Takako was an aggressive drunk. Shogo didn't know exactly what it was that Yutaka had said - and Shogo couldn't imagine the little midget saying anything particularly malicious either - but it led to Takako chasing him around the room, neither of them managing to run in a straight line. Shogo had left them to it for a while before he'd held Takako back, vaguely amused that only in her drunken state would Takako struggle against a man - let alone Shogo - the way she did. Yutaka said something about Takako being scary and this served only to antagonise her further.
"Them's fighting words!" She yelled, trying to lunge for the now running Yutaka but being held back by Shogo.
Shogo - with more patience and determination than he thought he possessed - managed to drag her upstairs by the arm and lock her in Noriko's bedroom, shouting through the heavy door that she could just go to sleep seeing as she wouldn't be getting out of there until the morning. If Takako's shrieking and screeching on the other side of the door was anything to go by, she wasn't happy with the situation. Shogo just left her to deal with it.
Yutaka had been easy to deal with; he was such a loving drunk. He attached himself to the reluctant Shogo, drunkenly saying:
"I love you", in a way that made Shogo roll his eyes; it appeared, when drunk, Yutaka loved everyone. Shogo had just replied:
"Yeah, yeah," before dragging Yutaka to what he assumed to be Noriko's little brother's room and telling him to lie down and go to sleep. Yutaka's head hit the spaceship-decorated pillow a millisecond after he fell asleep.
His friend was not quite so easy. Keita claimed to be feeling sick and locked himself in the upstairs bathroom. When Shogo eventually decided that he'd had enough of waiting for him and kicked the door open, he was lying curled up in front of the toilet. Evidently he was finished praying to the porcelain god, so Shogo half-dragged, half-carried his limp form to the nearest room - which turned out to be Mr Nakagawa's office - where he left him on him side on the only available furniture: a large armchair.
Following all this, he took a well deserved break; playing the knight in shining armour was not as rewarding as it was made out to be. In fact, it was highly irritating.
He wandered back down the stairs, and was only further annoyed by the fact that someone – he'd find out whose idea it had been and kill them personally when they were sober – had turned on music and that Nanahara and Noriko were now dancing to. Well. They were swaying, at best. But the fact it was Bruce Springsteen was enough to annoy him beyond words without any dancing being necessary.
Nobu and Takuma had somehow managed to crack open a new bottle of vodka; Shogo left them to it for the time being, figuring that the worse their hangover was, the more entertained he'd be.
Shinji (who Shogo assumed would have enough experience with alcohol to keep himself in check but clearly not) was trying, completely unsuccessfully, to build a 'bomb' using some glasses, something that appeared to be a disassembled stereo and what looked like strips of of the Nakagawa family's living room carpet.
Shogo raised one eyebrow; how much had he had? One thing was for sure, Noriko was not going to appreciate the damage done to her carpet in the morning.
Shogo pretty much just left them to it, leaning against the doorframe and watching in mild amusement while he tried to determine just how much blackmail he was going to be gaining in a single night.
It was only once Nobu somehow managed to smash a half-full bottle of vodka over his own foot that Shogo went over and dragged him out of the living room, growling at him that he'd better not have hurt himself because Shogo damn well wasn't phoning the hospital. Nobu, if he was indeed hurt, was too far gone to truly notice, kicking and screaming all the way as Shogo dragged him up the stairs and through the first door he could open while carrying a struggling teenager - which turned out to be a utility cupboard - where Shogo left him. After some pretty impressive swearing and a few lethal kicks at the door of the cupboard that had Shogo worrying he was going to bring the whole damn door down, Nobu eventually shut up, leaving Shogo to make a mental reminder that Yoshitoki Kuninobu was not a good drinking partner.
He then stalked back to the stairs to see Nobu's little partner-in-crime was clearly suffering from the ill effects of alcohol also. Nanahara had two spherical fruits shoved down his shirt, skipping along the corridor while singing:
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts!"
Apparently a drunken Nanahara was anything but a mature Nanahara.
Needless to say, Shogo grabbed him by the jacket and dragged him to the nearest room – the master bedroom, if he had to guess – and pushed the teenager to floor, telling him to go to sleep. Shogo left the room with Nanahara still giggling, but since he didn't follow Shogo, he supposed that Nanahara had either gone to sleep or simply couldn't get back up.
Shogo then had the infuriating task of having to locate the remaining three (Shinji, Takuma and Noriko) since none of them were where he had left them. As the night wore on, he was becoming more and more sorely tempted to just give up and go home to his warm bed and his loving girlfriend. But if something happened to them, he would likely feel bad in the morning. Not to mention Keiko would find out from Noriko and then he'd really be feeling bad for himself. And besides, he had done most of the work; only three people were on the loose.
He found the host of the party first; curled up on the stairs in a position that could not have been comfortable. Shogo knew he should probably move her, but decided against it; consequences are consequences. He did turn Noriko over so that there would be no choking on her own vomit, and then Shogo's quest for the two remaining idiots continued.
On his journey, he encountered a puddle of vomit, which left him with the odd desire to hold his nose, which he suppressed, as he passed it. He was hardly going to clean it up - that was out of the question.
He had to admit, he liked Shinji more than most of the others by the end of that night. He'd had found his own way to bed, and was lying in Mr and Mrs Nakagawa's bed, sucking his thumb contently, next to Nanahara, who appeared to have either got himself off the floor or been put there by Shinji. They seemed to be okay, prompting Shogo to just leave them where they were; whether Shinji had caused the whole problem or not, at least he'd found his own way to bed.
There was a strange relief to knowing that the ordeal was almost over: only one more drunken idiot to find and deal with. Only cruel fate would have it that it was Aoi Takuma. Shogo didn't pretend to know the blond boy to any degree; in fact the only ones who seemed to know the new boy at all were Nanahara and Noriko, who'd turned up one day out of the blue at school with him tagging along for reasons, and had neglected to introduce Shogo to their new bestie as of yet. Still, what Shogo was doing tonight had to be completed: once it was, he had done his good deed for the century and earned himself the right to guiltlessly refuse invitations to any future parties no matter what the occasion was.
Shogo, as it happened, found Takuma not by seeing him but by hearing him. Or more accurately, hearing what he was doing.
He reluctantly followed the hopeless sound of retching to the nearest bathroom, where he found Takuma hanging over the toilet bowl. He was taken by unwanted surprise by the small spark of sympathy he found he felt for the younger boy. This was not exactly how Takuma had wanted to spend the night of his eighteenth birthday, Shogo was sure.
Shogo stood still for a few minutes, and when he was fairly sure that the other had stopped vomiting, he made his presence known. Takuma looked up at him and drunkenly glared; a lot of the alcohol was out of his system now, meaning that he most likely wouldn't be in a drunken state for much longer, but the vomiting had left him obviously shaky.
"Go away" Takuma moaned, turning back around as he had begun to feel like he was going to throw up again.
This, however, was unfortunately not noticed by Shogo, who ignored Takuma's request for privacy, went over and heaved the boy to his feet, intent on making him go lie down somewhere and go to sleep. However, the force of the motion had done absolutely no favours for Takuma's shaken stomach, and he barely managed to turn his head enough to avoid the bile from hitting Shogo. Shogo was luckily safe: the bathroom wall was not so lucky.
Shogo shoved the boy down to his knees in front of the porcelain bowl, which was just as well, considering that Takuma was hardly finished throwing up, much to his own embarrassment and Shogo's annoyance. For a moment, the older of the two boys simply stood by with folded arms, looking at anything that wasn't the blond in front of him and internally wincing every time said boy retched. After a short time of this, however, Shogo figured that the calmer he got Takuma, the sooner he could move him upstairs and go home himself.
He couldn't just leave him like this; Takuma could then use it against him and no doubt Nanahara and Noriko would hear about it and this could ultimately end up with them and probably Keiko being mad at him again. And they would all be enormously angry if Shogo just walked out and left Takuma here in this state.
And so it was by total self motivation that Shogo happened to decide to try and take care of a sick person, something he had never done before in his life.
There's a first time for everything, he reassured himself bitterly.
Shogo grabbed the nearest towel off the rack – which had avoided being hit by the vomit that had instead splattered the wall elsewhere – and ran it under cold water. He then rinsed this towel out over the sink before kneeling down beside the other boy and gently pressing it to Takuma's forehead. He didn't meet the surprised look the other shot at him; instead he just held the damp towel in place until Takuma gathered his wits together enough to take hold of it himself, leaving Shogo to just kneel beside him.
For a few minutes, there was no sound in the room save for Takuma's heavy breathing. Shogo sat silently beside him, watching him warily; he had stopped vomiting, but that may only be a temporary measure, and if he tried to yank the boy up again and got hit this time, he knew he wouldn't be able to keep his patience. So he remained still and silent, waiting, keeping his impatience to himself for the time being.
It was only when Takuma retched again – how much alcohol had he consumed in just one night? It was sadly obvious he had never had any before in his life – that Shogo reached out an unsure hand to rest on the boy's back, where he rubbed gentle circles without looking at him.
From Takuma's point of view, this had to be a trick. He may have never met Shogo Kawada personally, but he knew that relation that he was not a man who usually tended to those drowning in their own vomit. Either Kawada had a hidden motherly side – not going to happen – or he was planning something that would almost certainly result in him holding this over Takuma's head for the rest of his life, and that was not an attractive thought to him, even in his semi-drunken state.
But he couldn't control what was happening now – although considering how bad this was, he now knew with absolute certainty that a number of his drinks had been spiked – and he was intelligent enough to realise that he was better off not moving from this humiliating position until he'd completely finished emptying the contents of his stomach, including the sinful liquid he'd consumed far too much of. He tried, a couple of times, to tell Kawada to piss off and leave him alone, but the young man was either deaf or ignoring him, and Takuma would put enormous sums of money he didn't have on the latter.
This was not Kawada. This wasn't the young man whom Takuma was fairly convinced hated everybody he looked at. If popular rumour was a reliable source, Kawada never spoke to anyone beside Noriko unless they initiated the conversation nowadays, and this sent off an obvious enough message of dislike. This had never bothered him - after all Takuma was hardly any different - but it was definitely confusing to see the same man sitting with him now, offering him a cool towel to rest on his forehead and rubbing his back.
Throughout the night he vaguely, drunkenly, remembered Kawada rounding up members of the rest of the group and taking them off to settle down for the night, before returning for the next one. He was aware that Kawada was doing this because he was the only one sober and likely didn't want the entire crowd to be mad at him he next day. So it made sense enough for Kawada to stay and get people into safe enough positions.
But to actually sit with Aoi Takuma and comfort him through a phase of vomiting which was entirely his own fault? Kawada had no way of knowing, from Takuma's point of view, that the latter's drinks had often been spiked. This was a whole new ball game.
And by the time that he was finally sure that was well and truly void of alcohol in his system, Takuma had decided that it was actually bearable to have, just this once, someone sitting with him while he was ill. He found that it wasn't entirely unpleasant, even with that person being Shogo Kawada.
Shogo had been enormously relieved when Takuma had told him to move so that he could get up, that he was in the way – in his mind, Shogo translated this to:
"I'm done puking my guts up and I'd really like to get out of here before I embarrass myself further."
However, he hadn't been so thrilled to realise that, even with the alcohol out of his system, Takuma was having trouble walking, and so Shogo had to grab his arm and guide him to the nearest room – which just so happened to be the living room.
Hiroki was asleep on the sofa already, curled up like a kitten and softly snoring, so he got Takuma to sit down on the enormous, cushy armchair opposite said sofa.
His plan had been to force the boy to lie down, turn off the lights, write a note for Noriko explaining that he'd have to clean up the place a bit before her parents got home, and then go home and head for his bed; this rather eventful night had left him exhausted.
Unfortunately for him, Takuma had other plans.
He lay the smaller boy down on the armchair and straightened up properly, ready to make his departure, but a trembling hand grabbed hold of his sleeve and held on with a firm grip. Shogo looked down, irritated, into brown eyes that shone with what could only be a mixture of tiredness, curiosity and the shakiness gained by a recent bout of vomiting. He didn't get a chance to speak before Takuma did.
"Why do you do it?"
Shogo regarded him like one might regard someone who had just asked what language people from England speak. "What?"
"Why do you keep...hanging out with them?" Takuma slurred, his hands waving about a bit in a clear attempt to get his point across. "I would...run. Run away. Get away. Why?"
Shogo was mildly amused; Takuma would never have said this if he wasn't sick or drunk or tired or whichever it was that had caused him to let his guard down. As fun as it would be to mess with the kid, possibly because of the same morals and self-standards that had forced him to deal with the rest of the drunken shenanigans of that night, he answered some-what truthfully.
"They grow on you."
Takuma blinked up at him sleepily. "Eh?"
Shogo suppressed the urge to laugh; the kid was falling asleep in his arms, saying things he'd never say entirely consciously. Oh well. If Takuma could humiliate himself, then so could Shogo.
"They grown on you, like fungus" he explained "They stick to you and you can't get away." Thankfully Takuda was too far gone to register the little smile on Shogo's face. "And eventually - it takes a hell of a long time and the self-control of a damn priest - but eventually, you stop wanting to run away. Hell, you actually start to like them."
"Oh" Takuma just sort of mumbled, barely awake. "That's...that's cool."
His head abruptly flopped to the side and he then fell silent; his slightly heavier breathing indicated that he had fallen asleep.
Shogo shook his head – after this night, this would become a fond memory of his, that he would smile at whenever it crossed his mind – and gently lay Takuma down, trying to arrange his limp limbs into a reasonably comfortable position.
And with that accomplished, Shogo left the room and headed for the study to grab some paper and a pen, having to shuffle around an unconscious Keita in his armchair to reach the desk. He proceeded to write a short note to Noriko that basically said 'clean up this mess' and then he left the house, heading back to his own apartment, where he expected a congratulatory kiss from his girlfriend for surviving this night and a faithful promise from her to not to send him on any more trips to 'improve his social skills', even if it was Noriko Nakagawa's birthday.
In the morning that followed, there would be many hangovers, a furious Nobu, a distressed Noriko at he state of her house and a bunch of formerly drunken idiots who now had to be 'eternally grateful' for Shogo's heroic rescues.
And Takuma would remember. He would remember everything.
Which was why, when he turned up at Shogo's apartment unannounced several days later, there were no sarcastic comments made as he was allowed into Shogo's home. Only two friends who had finally had common ground to start something on.
Shogo wasn't entirely sold on Keiko's 'start of a beautiful friendship', but it sure as hell was something.