The man arose from his slumber with a massive throbbing pain in his head. He sat up in his bed and clutched his head.
"Ugh... I went overboard last night, didn't I?" The man said to no one in particular. He felt around on the night stand that was next to his bed, sliding his hand all around until he found a rectangular object. He pressed the small protruded button near the side of the device, and it roared to life, saying "S-Phone on! Hello, Simon." in a rather melodious voice.
Simon quickly turned it off while he winced in pain from the light the device gave off. 'In retrospect, that wasn't a good idea.' he thought, while gingerly placing the device back onto the nightstand. He was no stranger to hangovers, so he knew what he had to go.
He pulled his covers off of his body and slid out of bed, grasping the wall, just to make sure he wouldn't fall. He felt his way to the light control and turned the brightness up a shade, akin to that of a sunset. He then opened his bedroom door, and then walked towards the kitchen.
He grabbed a glass and filled it with water from the sink, and then opened his cabinets looking for his "medicine". 'Medicine is a funny way to put it,' he thought 'when in reality, it's just for drunkards and worthless piles of crap like me.' He located the glass bottle, opened the cap, and poured out two of the blue colored tablets. Throwing them into his mouth and then drinking a glass of water seemed to be apart of his daily routine now; he had been doing this for a while now.
Simon got up and went towards his pantry, looking for something to eat, because he hadn't had anything but shitty bar food in the past two days. He managed to scrounge up the ingredients to make pancakes, but soon realized that it was usually Nia who would cook for him if he wanted something hot. 'Shit,' he thought, 'I don't want to see anyone right now, but I can't starve...'
Simon decided on going out incognito, as he had been doing for the past few weeks. Better to go outside unnoticed than stay inside and be bothered. He got up from the table, felt the cooling effects of his "medicine" finally kick in, and went to his bedroom to get clothes.
As he walked by his bed and towards his bathroom, which held his closet, he noticed his S-Phone blinking red. He grabbed it and powered it on to see what the problem was. '102 unread messages. 35 voice-mails. 68 missed calls.' the device displayed. Simon sighed. 'Can't they just fucking leaving me alone for a goddamn while? Not like I haven't already done enough, they need me to be their conversation piece at parties too?'
Simon threw the device on the floor. He didn't care what they wanted, nor did he care if it was important. He wanted to be alone. He walked into his bathroom and looked in the mirror. He was growing a beard. He hadn't shaved in two weeks, not since he 'dropped off the face of the earth' as some would put it. He moved his hands down the sides of his jaw and rubbed the beard, before deciding that he would leave it. Shaving would cut time out of his day anyways.
He stripped out of his tank top and pajama bottoms and grabbed a fresh pair of jeans and a slightly soiled shirt. He didn't want to look nice in the part of town he was going to, because that attracted attention. The last thing he needed was for some thug or beastman to try and mug him.
He looked in the mirror again to see if he looked the type- a drunkard who didn't have money. From the lot he had seen where he was going, he fit the part perfectly. He grabbed a ratty pair of sneakers, hastily slipped his feet into them, and then walked out of his bathroom.
He noticed that his phone was blinking red again. 'Are you kidding me?' he thought, 'I haven't replied to any of their attempts at contact, and they're still trying?' They were persistant, Simon would give them that, but they wouldn't catch him, or even find him. He wouldn't spend the day here. When he picked up the phone, the prompt read: "Look, I remember what tomorrow is too. We're worried about you Simon. We're all your friends, and we do genuinely care about you. Why don't we meet somewhere, just the two of us, and we can talk? - Yoko".
'I won't be falling for that,' Simon thought, and then chuckled. 'Yoko is predictable. Knowing her, she'd have Kittan and Rossiu there too, just so she could somehow get me back to work.'
Simon shoved the device in his right pant pocket, and started to make his way towards the door. He heard a light rapt upon his metallic front door. "Oi, Simon, you there? We have a problem. Uh... a big, nasty one, yeah, that's it. We need Gurren Lagann to help."
Simon recognized the voice instantly as Kittan's, and then heard another voice berating him.
"You idiot, he's not that dumb! Ugh... do I have to do everything myself? Thankfully he probably didn't even hear you."
Yoko. Definitely Yoko.
"SIMON!" Yoko cried out. "WE'VE GOT A MASSIVE PROBLEM DOWNTOWN! THE GRAPEARLS CAN'T FIGHT THIS THING! WE REALLY NEED YOU AND GURREN-LAGANN'S HELP!"
Simon was conflicted. He could take the chance that there was actually a problem downtown that needed his attention, or it could be a poorly put together ruse by Yoko, and Kittan to kidnap him. The latter made way more sense. Rossiu had set up a special hotline to his house if anything major ever happened, and only Rossiu and Simon knew about it. Why would Rossiu send Yoko and Kittan, when he could just use the hotline?
Wondering if he should take pity on them, or just leave, he looked through the peep-hole that was installed in his door, and gazed upon Kittan and Yoko.
"Oh, wait!" Yoko proclaimed. "Nia gave me his house key earlier today, so we could check up on him!"
"So we just wasted twenty minutes coming up with a lie when we could've walked in and nabbed him ourselves? You're really something else, Yoko." Kittan replied, looking at Yoko like she was a total idiot.
"What's that supposed to mean, Kittan?" Yoko yelled, while fumbling through her brown rucksack.
"It means he could be awake and listening to us right now, and he could be making a break for it because you were stupid enough not to remember the key!" Kittan shouted back and Yoko. They were face to face, shouting at each other for a few seconds until they both stopped and looked straight at the peephole.
Simon jumped back. 'Shit,' he thought, 'I've got to get out of here! I can't believe Nia would betray me like that! After I told her NOT to give that key to anyone!'
Sprinting to the backdoor, as soon as he got outside, he could hear Kittan attempting to jump his fence. Kittan was grunting and looking down at his feet to make sure they weren't falling, so that gave Simon some time to start climbing the back fence. As soon as Kittan managed to get over his fence, he saw Simon maneuvering his body over the fence, and falling to the other side. "HEY YOKO!" he yelled, "HE'S GETTING AWAY OVER HIS BACK FENCE!"
Simon was in a full on sprint from the time his body hit the ground. He had made his way across the street when he looked behind him and saw Kittan and Yoko lagging behind.
"HELP! HELP! THAT MAN STOLE MY PURSE!" Yoko was shouting while pointing at Simon.
'Damnit Yoko! Now you've got to get the police involved? What part of my "No communication" did you not get?' Simon thought, panting.
He was now running from two street policemen, Kittan, and Yoko. "Don't worry ma'am!" one of the policemen said, "We'll make sure this scumbag rots in a cell for evading arrest and theft!"
Since when was evading arrest if you did nothing wrong a crime? Isn't Yoko the one committing a crime? Lying to a policeman, and wasting his time in a pursuit of a innocent man?
Simon saw a break for it, but it would require breaking the law. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure he had enough distance between them to actually do it. They seemed to be losing their speed, all except Kittan, who was still in remarkably good shape. Simon looked at a fire-escape on the side of a building. He could, theoretically, climb the ladder, pull up the ladder, then escape by the rooftops. Dangerous, and stupid, but he was desperate.
He didn't want to see these people, and he definitely didn't want to talk to them. Being locked up in a cell, interrogated by some policemen while he made up some bullshit story about why he was running from them in the first place, and then having them take him to wherever they intended? It was too much.
He grabbed the ladder and started climbing. "Hey!" Kittan shouted. "Get back here, Simon!"
He slipped and almost fell, but Simon was determined to not be caught by these idiots. He saw that Kittan too, was now climbing the ladder. 'Shit,' he thought, 'Now I can't get away by rooftop, because Kittan is equally dumb enough to actually try roof jumping.
As Simon made his way up the flights of emergency stairs, Kittan started shouting at him.
"You've got nowhere else to run, Simon! We just want to help! Come on, we haven't seen you in almost two months, you've gone completely off the radar! We know what today is too! We know how you feel! What are we supposed to do?"
"What are you supposed to do? You're asking me what you're supposed to do?" Simon shouted back, his voice dripping with rage. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE, THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO!"
Kittan stopped climbing the flight of stairs, his mouth agape. This gave Simon the time he needed to get onto the roof. Simon ran from side to side, realizing how stupid he had been. There was nowhere to go, this was it. He was going to be arrested, and then forced to talk to the very people he had been avoiding for weeks now. Kittan was now on the roof.
"C'mon... Simon... we're just worried about you." He said in a low voice, as if he was somewhat apologetic for following Simon and pestering him.
Simon turned around and started running. He would rather die than face them. Not now. Not ever. He was responsible for Aniki's death, no matter how many times they told him he wasn't. They said it was just a phase, and he'd get over it. It wasn't that simple, he couldn't just forget about Aniki's death, and his role in it, especially when it was just a day away from being three years since he died! Not like this.
Simon ran until he arrived at the edge of the building. As if it was pure instinct, he vaulted across the divide between the two buildings, and as if the gods themselves played a part in helping him land, he grabbed onto the edge of the building's roof.
"SIMON!" both Yoko and Kittan screamed out in sync. Simon grasped the side of the building with a strong grip and begun to pull himself up. "SIMON, YOU IDIOT! YOU ALMOST KILLED YOURSELF! JUST TO GET AWAY FROM HELP? HOW SELFISH ARE YOU?" Yoko shouted out, sounding like she was holding back tears.
"Yoko... he doesn't want to be bothered. Let's just... let him go, for now." Kittan said, putting his hand on her right shoulder.
Simon had fully pulled himself up, and laid down on the rooftop of the building to catch his breath.'That was, by far, the dumbest thing you've ever done. How selfish are you? Would Aniki have wanted you to die running away from people who care about you? No. You're being an asshole about it, and you know it.' Simon thought.
He sighed, and sat up. He looked at the building he was previously on. No sign of Yoko and Kittan, or the policemen. 'I guess they have given up.' He thought.
His stomach rumbled. Simon groaned and started to make his way into the building. About 15 minutes later, after he navigated the halls and found the stairs, he was out, and needed to find a place to eat.
He started to wander around, until he found a place called 'Jill's Diner'. He decided it was as good as any other place to get coffee and eggs, so he walked in, and sat down.
Two tables over, and with their backs to him, sat the two people he had spent the past hour running from and avoiding. How fortuitous!
Yoko's face was buried in her hands, and she was visibly crying at this point. Simon felt a tinge of guilt for being so selfish, and was shocked to see her being different than her usually stoic self. He couldn't help but eavesdrop on their conversation.
"It's just... he's turning everyone out, y'know? I mean... Nia told me he hasn't called her in weeks, Rossiu says he hasn't shown up to work in about a month, and he hasn't talked to any of his friends in weeks either! What are we supposed to do, Kittan? I-I know... I know he's always been this way around... but it's never been this bad! I mean, the memorial is in a week, for god sake! He's been grieving over his death for too long! I thought that when he got better, he was better for good, y'know? But it's like he's going farther and farther into his shell..." Yoko kept rambling on and on, and Kittan would occasionally chime in with "I know, I understand, we love him too..." or a variant of the sort.
Simon had heard enough. He decided to get up and leave. He left money on the tables, and started to head towards the shady part of town. Now was as good a time as any to get drunk.
The bar was almost a cliche. It had lowly dimmed lights, red velvet bar-stools, and a mahogany counter, with a man rubbing a glass behind it. Simon snorted. 'Just like the movies.'
Simon looked around, to make sure he wouldn't have the misfortune of running into another person he knew. That's just what he needed, to see another one and to hear their sob-story about how they hadn't seen him and they were worried, etc, etc. He'd heard it all at this point.
He approached the counter and sat down on one of the red velvet stools. The bartender glanced at him and quickly walked over. "Sir, I'm truly sorry, but due to a new... law, yes, that's it, law, we'll have to see your government mandated identification or you'll be asked to leave."
Simon looks up at the man and stares at him dead in the eyes, as if he wanted to freeze him with his vision. "Just who the hell do you think I am?" Simon replies in a harsh voice, clearly not phased at what the man has asked him.
A wave of realization dawned upon the Bartender, who quickly recovered his cool demeanor. He knew who Simon was. Everyone did. And he knew better than anyone to refuse him service. After all, he was a hero.
"Ah, yes... I'm sorry sir, my apologies. First round is on the house, I'm terribly sorry for the misunderstanding."
Simon stares at the man for a while, and then says "Vodka." and goes back to staring at the counter, as if something gravely important was written on it.
"Right away." the bartender replies, shuffling off to prepare his drink.
It was 11:13 in the night of the next day before the Taxi arrived at his house. Simon somehow managed to consume way over the legal limit, and way over what his body should allow, and had also managed to piss an entire day away. He briefly thought about how he should be dead, but chalked that out to the bartender watering down the drinks. "T-that... bastard..." Simon muttered. He'd give him a piece of his mind tomorrow. All he needed now was some sweet sleep. That'd be the relief he needed. He walked towards his bedroom, visions of Aniki's dead body flashing through his mind. "GODDAMMIT!" he shouted, "AFTER ALMOST THREE YEARS, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE?"
Simon realized that Aniki wasn't there. He stomped towards his bed, and didn't bother to even take his clothes off. He flopped onto the bed and contemplated what like would be like if he and Kamina had never left Geha Village. 'Not like it matters,' he thought. 'Nothing I can do would bring Kamina back. Not even all of this damn Spiral Power. Load of shit that's done me now.'
Simon started feeling intensely ill. "Urgh..." he moaned out. He felt an intense splitting pain in his forehead, and he started screaming from the immense pain. His vision was blacking out. In the thin strip of vision he had, everything went pure green. "Wha..." he tried to say as he passed out from the horrible pain.
