Ashy-note Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! This one was inspired by a sudden stroke of inspiration that involved a Cellphone, the internet, and a random lunch date fic. Consider it a sequel to Welcome Home, I really don't mind, although it wasn't really planned like that in the first place. This is, after all, a Valentine's gift to all of you. (:
Also, I would like to incorporate (and promote) November Romeo's Natsume Nullified, and I have no right whatsoever to claim that Natsume's high tolerance for alcohol is an original idea. I got it from the aforementioned story's fifth chapter, entitled Five Drunks and Me. Part of Ruka's narration about his alcohol tolerance was also inspired by the story.
Set at twenty-eight years old, two months after Welcome Home, on the 13th of February, in Ruka's point of view. (WH was set December.)
Specially dedicated to Stalker, Maria, Nana, Jaz-nee, and Baby Andrea—the people I love inside this fandom. Really. No joke. Srsly.
-/-
The Day Before Valentine's
one
Out
I rarely get to see Natsume as flustered as he is now, and I must say, I'm driving myself crazy thinking of what could possibly be the reason for this suddenly aggravated and irritable man who was standing in front of his employees in a flaring bad mood.
After the company had a successful and completely, impossibly rocket launch, all the employees of Natsume Hyuuga knew him to be a nice, dedicated, and albeit a little isolated a very approachable boss.
Things were bound to get interesting every once in a while.
"Kagure, get off your ass and stop flirting with Sui and just do your job. I'm not paying you to be such a lazy wimp. And everyone, I want reports of the Innovations, Inc. partial financial statements when I come out of my office, you hear me? Amane, call Kitsuneme, tell him I want to see him in my office later this evening for a serious talk about his son driving my daughter insane and tell him I know he taught the little devil himself, and tell Anna to send Mikan chocolates and confectioner's sugars and cookies and cake for the twins."
A sound of laughter spiked the fire caster's temper and he turned with slanted eyes to a man in the corner talking to Amanatsu (now called Sui) who looked… scared.
Natsume's voice was deadly, ice cold, and sharp. "Kagure. One more warning and I swear to the hairs of your chin I will fire you. Literally or speaking as your boss."
It was to everyone's knowledge that Natsume Hyuuga was a strong Fire Alice. It was natural for the poor subject of his screaming to immediately jump into action. But me? I wanted to laugh out loud, if not for the respect I felt for the man.
Because seriously—"I swear to the hairs of your chin," he said! Did he really just say that?
I had to stifle the really, really overwhelming urge to burst out in a fit of laughter.
Mikan was obviously rubbing off his nature.
He left his subordinates in a state of shock, and I took time to speak out loud to everyone. They didn't know Natsume yet, after all. I'd give them a hint. "We all have those days."
They all sighed and smiled at me while I left to follow the irate man. After eighteen years of keeping him company, I know just when something's up. And I know Natsume inside-out, practically, so I can tell the basic reason for this lashing out, the only reason for it in the first place.
Something happened to him and the wife, as he put it.
And naturally, being the stubborn mule that Mikan was, she is—as far as I can tell with Natsume's mood—refusing completely at the poor guy's attempts for making up. I bet all those orders to Amane were all part of the peace offering (except for the part about Kitsuneme, I really wonder what that clown made his son do to little Suki to get Natsume go protective-daddy).
He slammed the door right after I had slipped in, just in time before the oak panels could ram me in the face.
He picked up the phone and began dialing furiously, occasionally swearing under his breath, acting like I'm completely invisible. Quietly (although I know that even if I shouted he still wouldn't hear me) I looked at the features of the boy-turned-man and watched his every move, his every gaze, with medical precision.
Being a veterinarian with a pre-med in psychology never felt as useful and entertaining to me as when I have to figure out when Natsume's all riled up.
The line, it seemed, was answered by a machine. He spoke through a gritted voice, "Mikan, honey, look, I know you're there so answer the damn phone, please, I need to talk to you. Can't you just keep your mule head out of the way and listen?"
I had to wince—those aren't anger-pacifying words…
I heard the screams emanating from his phone, catching words that sounded like "bastard" and "unhelpful" and "children" and a few others I think I should not have heard… private, personal, married life stuff.
Oh, heavens, this man is hopelessly under command.
I only needed the three signs of this being a wife problem, and when I chuckled in that corner there it was, the majestic first indication of Natsume Hyuuga's sign number one: failure to recognize his surroundings, his sudden loss of control over every sensory nerve. If he were in charge of himself he would've already kicked me out of his office for laughing my ass off at his predicament.
Oh, yes. Natsume Hyuuga, bad boy extraordinaire, notorious, infamous, the Black Cat from nearly ten years ago, was so, so whipped.
Whipped by Sunshine herself, the very personification of the non-existent hopeful, loving, joyful, peaceful, cat-whipping goddess of Alice Academy mythology: Mikan Sakura-Hyuuga.
His wife. Who, as of the moment, was his Devil's Advocate.
I love seeing them all mommy-daddy-husband-wife.
The phone made a loud tapping noise that signaled the end of their one-sided shouting match—I'm ever so thankful my wife creates impact-resistant phones, else the poor gadget would have fallen apart already in Natsume's hands. I watched my best friend as he rubbed the bridge of his bone-straight nose and sighed deeply when his red eyes found me, slightly in surprise as though realizing I was there for the first time today (when in fact I had been with him since an hour ago).
He walked over to his desk and rummaged in his drawer for his petty cash wallet and pointedly asked me the same question he has instinctively asked ever since he'd gotten married, mostly during times when he'd find himself in a sticky situation with the wife.
"You in for a drink?"
Bingo.
Sign number two: Alcohol.
:|:
The girl in the corner of the bar was throwing us hopeful and wondering glances.
It takes some getting used to, this new-found fame of ours. I knew being Natsume's best friend meant the limelight was going to be reflecting on you too—I'd felt that since the Academy days—but this was just nothing compared to those childhood days, when the worst a girl could do to you was kiss you or chase after you like a rampant baboon. Because when you're the best friend of the business-world's shocking economic and tactical genius, the man who entered the game and played it for a short but definitely explosive five years then left in early retirement and then mysteriously resurfaced with a vengeance that wiped out every other competitor in a smooth six months' span, and you're just starting to make a name in the world of medicine yourself while married to the CEO of the world's leading technological empire, well… the spotlight was bound to shine on you too.
There were perks, like easy maneuvers through transactions, wide choices for sponsors and materials and all, but the lows outweighed the highs.
Like now.
The girl stood up from her seat and approached us both, at the bar counter, with Natsume gripping his champagne glass and glaring daggers at the approaching female specimen. She just kept walking on. It was either she didn't notice or she didn't care; after all, Natsume's cold exterior wasn't unknown to the world.
When she was within earshot, her mouth opened as if in speech, though I barely heard a word, busy as I was absorbing the sudden drop of temperature in the club. The glass in Natsume's hand was beginning to fog. My water was starting to freeze.
His Alice. His Alice was starting to manifest itself clearly as the people began complaining about the cold—I felt it myself, in the frosty bite to my skin. Clearly his powers were much, much more dangerous now that they've matured.
After we left the Academy and experienced more of the world we'd managed to grow along with our Alices in small ways. Me, for one, I had learned how to affect people with my Alice, although the effect wasn't as immediate and as strong as in other animals, like Narumi's could (Hotaru says it's because my Alice was Animal Pheromones and as humans were animals, too, I'm able to do the same, unlike Sensei). Hotaru had grown, too. Her Alice can now incorporate personal specifications to the things she create, and she could infuse supernatural characteristics to her raw materials and making stuff like flame-resistant steel and non-fragile glass (both of which she realized after Natsume requested her to create a custom-built cellular phone for his private line). Even Mikan could now project her Nullifying Alice, though her stealing and insertion Alice never morphed into anything else.
And Natsume worked out the inverting of his powers—hot to cold and back. He could suck in the heat from his surroundings and turn everything ice-cold, but unlike Ibaragi-san, whose Alice allowed her to do things with ice, that was as far as Natsume could go. He could only make things colder and hotter.
Which explains why the water in the glass I held was now ice.
And there goes sign number three: loss of Alice control.
Doubts are all gone, all right. This was definitely the wife. And on the eve of Valentine's, I completely understand his staid composure. After all, I wouldn't like it if I was waging a war against my wife just before the day of hearts.
This might get out of hand; this needs to stop, he needs to go home and fix everything. "Natsume, let's go."
The girl started shivering. Serves her right, wearing such skimpy clothes…
:|:
"What happened to Suki?"
He grunted in the passenger seat as I drove him home, a good fifty minutes away from the city. He wasn't drunk, exactly, as all he'd drunk was champagne and he had high tolerance for alcohol (as we all know, and as I'd love to forget for the rest of my existence), but at least he was less blast-prone as a while ago.
The rain had begun to fall. It was eight in the evening and the sun was gone. Natsume had just finished talking calmly to Amane to cancel the meeting with Kitsuneme (although strictly ordering that he do so once the man was inside the office building, just to irk off the guy), and his earlier words crossed my mind.
Natsume scowled, but afterwards contentment and a weird radiating aura of amusement exuded from him. "Kitsuneme's boy called her strawberry print."
Oh, god.
Keeping a laugh wasn't possible, and it was better because he laughed with me.
"So that's how you knew Kitsuneme taught him that!"
"Naturally. No other man on earth would have taught his child such blasphemy at six years old."
"Speak for yourself, you were the pervert at ten."
"Yeah, well, six is a lot younger than ten, and I already knew about the world. Kitsuneme's son knows nothing yet, partly because his father—poor kid—is too much of a goof. Thank goodness the kid's mom's Nonoko; at least he's not going to inherit his father's brains."
I laughed again; the rain was falling harder now and Natsume's expression turned into something softer. "And what did little Suki do?"
He smirked. "She screamed. Just like her idiot of a mother."
I laughed lightly and went on. "Right. Her idiot of a mother, the only person who can make your very skin crawl with apprehension and twist you into knots of anger and frustration."
His expression momentarily turned blank, and when he faced me I only shot him the "spit it out" look.
Natsume just sighed. "Ruka…"
"What is wrong with you?"
Natsume's eyes flashed in defense. "What do you mean, what wrong with me?"
"Oh, shut up. You're a bad actor. It is perfectly obvious something's up between you and her."
He grunted. I bit my lip, trying hard not to laugh and crash ourselves into a tree. "I'm waiting."
"Fine," he mumbled, burying his face in his palms. The tension that suddenly sprang from his body coiled itself up and around me; maybe it really was a serious thing they argued about. "The wife's mad."
I kept throwing anxious glances at my immobile friend and waited for his answer. His eyes gave him away. He was clearly very much annoyed. It was another indication I had learned to live with.
Those eyes could only mean one thing: what happened was yet another struggle completely unfounded and unparallel with logic and reason. Simply enough, it meant to say, Hold off your laughter because this is a ridiculous thing—again, as usual.
And of course, he didn't fail to disappoint.
"I forgot to do the dishes this morning."
I stepped on the brakes roughly and the car tires screeched, but it was drowned out by the sound of my laughter.
Dishes—they're arguing over dishes. "You are in a war with her because you forgot to do the dishes?"
"Yes, and she says it's being completely irresponsible, and I don't even know what's wrong with that! It isn't like Suki and Hana don't know how to do stuff like that yet. And besides, I didn't forget to do the damn dishes, I just didn't. There's a difference."
He sighed and buried his face in his palms again. They laughter hadn't drowned out of me yet. Gods be good, these Hyuugas are so hilarious.
Still hung over from mirth, I restarted the car and in no time we were back to driving along the wet road, my speedometer slowly inching towards one-fifty. We were still a good twenty minutes away; still enough time to pester him with more questions. "And why didn't you do the dishes?"
He snorted, annoyed at my persistence. "Because I burned them."
My eyebrows reflexively knotted. This man has serious issues. "You—you what? Burned them? Why?"
"Well don't you sound like a housewife."
I ignored the jibe. "Why did you burn them?"
"Because I wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. I told you, I didn't forget. I just didn't. It was the easiest way out."
Just then I remembered something that struck my anxiety chords really hard. "Which set of plates did you burn?"
"The black ones."
"With the gold outlines?"
"Yes."
"And the sakura petals?"
"Yes."
Oh, no… Oh no, oh no, oh no…
"Those were Hotaru's gift."
Natsume froze in his seat and I saw him wince at my words. "Shit."
I nodded, blinking fast. "Double shit."
"She's probably called your wife by now."
"They're probably wanting to murder you."
"And you."
"And me—sometimes I hate that you're my best friend, you know?"
"Well, we're in this together, mate. Two musketeers."
"Musketeers your face. Now we'd have to fight off two hormonal women."
I imagined the look on Hotaru's face once she finds out. Or after she found out, more like. "This is really deep shit, Natsume."
He laughed then fell silent. "You can say that again. Deep, deep shit. Madhouse. We're about to be screwed."
"Murdered, at most."
"Whipped by the wives."
"Whipped by the pregnant wives."
He winced. "Forgot about that part."
"Obviously, else you would never have dared to do that little stunt this morning."
"Don't remind me, Ruka."
"This is your fault."
"And this is why you're my best friend, Ruka. You're going down with me."
"Ah, shoot yourself."
And then another stretch of silence where we both contemplated. The word was out of our mouths at the same time.
"Damn."
We were silent all the way home, thinking deeply about the depths of danger in which we were in, and when I came to a stop right outside their door, there stood two women, both infuriated, both clearly angry, on the very eve of Valentine's day.
Two pairs of eyes met ours and I swallowed.
This was not a nice eve for the day of love and happiness and fluff.
"Hyuuga. Nogi."
I had to swallow and sigh.
"Explain to me the fairy tale of the ashen porcelain fifty-thousand dollar plates."
Oh, shit.
I swear Natsume said the same thing in his mind.
HAH! This is a two-shot, don't worry. One's for Valentine's eve, the next for tomorrow on Valentine's Day. (:
EDIT, 09 JULY 2012: The original upload of this story was deleted, apparently because of "inappropriate content/summary" and all that, so here I am posting it again, this time hopefully no more violations.
~Ash.
