Thank you so so so so so much for the reviews~!
I'm glad people actually like this story ^^
Disclaimer: I do not own No.6
Safu had arrived as expected, paper in hand. Shion took the time to clean his apartment up, and he hid the cups in the sink, knowing she wouldn't over analyze them there.
The blanket was washing, everything was back in order and he looked in the mirror to see if Nezumi had left any marks.
(He wasn't sure how that worked, but he heard of it happening to people. He wanted to check just to be safe.)
Safu knocked on the door, and Shion answered, nearly tripping over something. He didn't have time to see what it was.
"I told you you'd catch cold!"
She looked up at him as he gave him a tan envelope. He only smiled, scratching his nose out of habit.
"I guess you were right, then," he said, as she passed him. He shut the door.
Safu scanned his face as he put the envelope down on the coffee table, and kept her stare as he walked to the kitchen.
"Do you want anything?" He asked. She snapped out of her train of thought.
"Oh-I'm fine, thank you," she said, before feeling something on the heel of her shoe. She looked behind her and on the floor, mostly under the couch was a sweater.
She picked it up.
It was inside out.
"Oh, that!" Shion's smile widened as he came back to the livingroom with a glass of water. Safu was busy turning the sweater right side out.
"That kept me warm last night, I meant to put it away."
She smiled at the fabric as his words sunk in, but she had a strange feeling that he didn't mean them as she wanted him to. She looked back at Shion, asking "You wore this?"
"I did," he lied, before sipping his drink. His face didn't look flushed and he was breathing perfectly fine. Although he had missed class, he didn't have the characteristics of a sick person.
He was too cheery and abnormally amused today. It made her feel uneasy.
She couldn't find any reason why as she stared at the jagged line.
"My grandmother gave this to you the day you came to the city," she said, thoughtfully. Her grandmother had loved to knit and more than anything, she loved to knit for other people.
Safu had grown up with Shion in a rural area before they moved here for college. Safu wanted to expand her horizons and believed Shion wanted the same thing. She let her ambitions lead her to this university, where she had hoped he would notice her.
Instead he was acting suspicously off key today, and the sweater she had given him didn't smell like Shion. It held an unusual musky animal scent that radiated around it, making it noticable. It was unlike anything in Shion's apartment.
Nothing else was out of place except for this, but she only silenced her thoughts. Perhaps she was putting too much emphasis on one small change. After all, he played in the rain yesterday evening.
"Do you remember that day?"
Safu's brown eyes met Shion's, and she held her breath, waiting for an answer.
Shion nodded. "It was my eighteenth birthday," he said, placing the cup on the coffee table.
They sat on his couch, and Safu looked at the glass, and then back at Shion, who was staring at it.
It had been just before the beginning of their fall semester, and he had been invited to Safu's house to help her pack and celebrate his birthday.
There was a cake and they were in a well built house surrounded by fields and open ranges. Safu was lamenting on how she'd miss everyone they knew, from the people in the small stores nearby to her neighbors as they passed eachother on their ways to them.
Safu had hoped to live on her own in a house she made herself, writing books. She studied cells and human reactions; why people did the things they did and acted the way they act. Although her yearn for knowledge had been the push she needed to fly, there was still a part of her longing to keep Shion by her side through school, and her career.
She wanted to one day have a stable income in a career she worked hard for, and to live out here, with him. She wanted more than anything, to raise a family, loving the consistancy and repitition of her life with her grandmother.
She sensed that the city was doing more than giving them access to wider horizons. Shion didn't miss the country as much as she did, did he?
His eyes were still on that glass. He never missed school, even for colds, and the table was cleaner than usual. Everything was more organized than it usually was, and he was being very quiet for a prolongued period of time.
As minutes passed, Safu began to feel something creeping in her stomach and she stood up.
"I'll see you tomorrow, then," she smiled, waving. Shion looked up at her, coughing. It sounded forced.
"Thank you for coming by," he said. "I appreciate it!"
Walking through the door, Safu kept her head high and her eyes forward until it shut, and once she heard it locked, she looked to the carpeted hallway, biting her lip.
Something wasn't right. She lightly pushed a small used bandaid with her shoe before walking away.
Her intuition was telling her so.
Kicking the microphone stand, a black boot returned to it's place on the stage floor as a figure with long, dark brown hair strummed the strings of a bass guitar.
There were footsteps in the dark before a voice sighed, saying "You're missing notes."
Brown eyes glared at Nezumi as he twirled the microphone, staring into the blackness.
The same brown eyes narrowed as they pointed a half gloved finger.
"What is up with you today? First you tell me to be here on time, then you get here late, and through the whole set, all you do is space out! THEN you criticize my playing!"
A light flickered reflecting from the blade Nezumi had in his hand.
He was picking his nails with the tip of it. The microphone was put back in it's place. The figure blinked incredulously.
"YOU HELP PUT TOGETHER THIS PIECE OF SHIT PROJECT, SPACE OUT, AND NOW YOU'RE ACCUSING ME OF NOT CONCENTRATING?"
Nezumi nodded as snapped his pocketknife back into place. He had more things on his mind than the consistant barking of an angry mutt.
The man could feel his thoughts ridiculing him and he became furious.
"YOU DAMNED RAT." The man shouted "YOU NEED TO TAKE A GOOD LOOK IN THE MIRROR BEFORE YOU START WITH ME."
Footsteps stomped across the empty floor and a wire caught before an instrument was thrown down inconsiderably. The man who left clenched his fists and spat profanities as he slammed the exit door.
Nezumi only glanced at it, raising an eyebrow. The man went by Inukashi.
Walking across the emptied stage, Nezumi kept himself from stepping on a rat as he lent over and picked up the bass guitar.
If it hadn't been such a cheap purchase from the local pawn shop, perhaps he'd care about it more. After hours of arguing, he lost the ability to pity it's condition.
The stage they practiced on was just another one of the city's ruins. It was no popular venue and certainly not one anyone cared to use, and he figured sooner or later it would be broken down and turned into another bail bonds store.
It had a small bar in the back covered with cobwebs and empty shelves, chairs that were rusted and off color, and was infested with any kind of pestulance possible.
The lights didn't work because no electricity was in service for the building. It was another dead eyesore for drug deals to shadow in, and on more than one occasion, a hotel for the homeless.
That was how Nezumi found it. A wound on his back began to throb as he recalled the first day he stayed here.
He recalled being overwhelmed with the history of the place, and had to fight his way into it when the rain had become too heavy for him to deal with.
He remembered picking up every poster he found and imagining the scenes that used to play here. He stared at the stage for years, pretending that it was still fixed up, caught in a reverie with his overactive imagination.
This place had helped him live this long, and because of it, he found shelter, and when he could, comfort.
Nezumi smiled to himself as he walked towards a doorway. It was hidden by the curtains.
The door swung open and he walked inside, putting the lamp down. The inside of the room was filled with stacks and stacks of cassettes and records. It was large enough to hold libraries and libraries of them, and in the center of them all was a matress on the floor, where Nezumi slept.
Because this was inside a building, the door to outside only led to the stage. It was far enough away from the broken windows that he was kept cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
There was no need for a blanket.
He was thankful that he could be so lucky, knowing of people who would get too cold or die of heat strokes. He truly cared for this room, which he guessed was what used to be backstage.
The lamp's flame flickered.
On the walls were ads and posters of musicians whom had played here before. Everything from folk music to the local bands, which played on the other side of town. Whenever he could, Nezumi would sneak into their shows and watch them, soaking in the atmosphere he wanted so badly to be apart of.
They all had something he couldn't have and the jelousy burned through him but he never thought to express it. Instead he only found mediocre bandmates to try and play the songs he worked on, but each and every time, they would become irritated and quit. They all had things they'd rather do, much better aspirations than this.
In their eyes he must have looked pathetic living in an abandoned building, jobless,yet still having the nerve to keep a sharp tongue.
The thing keeping him from leaving had been his situation. How he found this place, how he managed to live here for so long.
Shutting the door, Nezumi stepped over discarded magazines and books, snapped strings and chipped drumsticks.
He lied on the matress looking up and he felt something on his back throb. How did an eighteen year old become orphaned in an unsanitary place like this? Where were his parents?
The pain throbbed more.
He shut his eyes as he opened his mouth to sing. Words came together and formed a song. The same song he always sang whenever he felt empty.
The wind sweeps away souls and people snatch away hearts...
His mouth shut. He was almost caught in another spell and knowingly, he froze.
That song was dangerous and he only sung it when he reached a place, mentally, that he forced himself to shut out.
Blowing out the lamp, Nezumi walked outside, locking the door as he hid it under worn velvet and debris.
He would go distract himself by keeping his promise to that stranger.
It was better than being alone in that room, with that song echoeing through his head. He jumped from the stage to a concrete floor, and walked faster.
It was dangerous to be alone right now.