Fun fact: Cap, Maki and the crew actually appear in the anime, just without names. I just fleshed them out a bit. You should be able to recognise them if you look up pictures of Fudou's gang!
Also, weekly updates should recommence now. Exams are over, woot!
Chapter 7: Grounds for Divorce
"How do you know my name?" Fudou demanded, though he tried to pass it off as a sneer. He was standing stiff and straight now, backed up against the wall.
He glared at the old guy in an attempt to warn him off. "Are you one of the guys who's been following me home? Because that ain't funny. That's harassment. We don't want to talk to you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," the ramen shop owner said bluntly. "Don't jump to conclusions, son."
Fudou took a deep breath, and relaxed just marginally. He pushed himself lightly off the wall and turned.
"Don't excuse yourself just yet, boy," the ramen guy said harshly. "I'm not done speaking to you. What have you been doing since your match against Raimon? You look in a pretty bad way."
"None of your business," Fudou snapped and started to walk away. Why did everybody want to involve themselves with his life? He heard the old man come closer, and walked a little faster to compensate.
"Stop running away from me," the guy said, and a large hand closed around his shoulder, gripping it tightly. Fudou immediately froze. The man stilled, too, and when he spoke again, it was in a tone he couldn't place.
"Oh, lord..." the geezer muttered. "I can smell the stink of drugs on you. What have you got yourself into, really? Answer me."
"I don't have to tell you anything," Fudou replied stiffly into the alleyway. He struggled, briefly, but the man's grip on him was too strong. His shoulder was so numb that it didn't hurt, and he was turned around to face the man and the grim expression on his face.
"You should get out while you can, Fudou," the old man said gravely. Why would he care? Fudou glared at him, and found himself wondering why the guy didn't take off his stupid-looking sunglasses. It was nighttime, for fuck's sake. "Addiction isn't something to play with. You have such a future ahead of you."
He scoffed. "Yeah, yeah. I've heard it all before. I went to school, you know. I had Drug Ed."
"You went to school," the man repeated, placing emphasis on the wrong word. Fudou's eye twitched.
"Look, let go of me, old man!" he tried to yell before a fresh spasm of coughs took over. Instead of dropping him, the man held on tighter and supported his frame with his other big oafish hand. After the spell subsided, Fudou cleared his throat, and tried again in a calmer voice. "Let me go. You don't have the right to hold me up like this." The man snorted, and he realised his double meaning too late.
"Who are you, anyway?"
The ramen guy pushed him back towards the wall and moved closer, but let go. "You don't have to mind me. I'm just the ramen guy down the street. But I've seen you play football, Fudou. You have an undeniable talent that can bring you far."
"Well, look how far it got me," he scoffed, sneaking glances towards his left and right. Did no one ever walk through this alleyway? Should he cast his pride aside and scream, hoping to attract attention? Would this guy just take him somewhere quieter if he did that?
The man shook his head. "You're not really listening. You have a talent, Fudou. You led punks into my store, and you led football players on the Shin Teikoku field. Don't waste it on stealing cigarettes. And drugs." He lay the words down harshly. "Come with me, Fudou. Show me the true abilities that are sleeping inside of you."
"Fuck you, old man!" he snapped back, but his words were without venom. Strangely, Fudou couldn't muster up much anger or indignation at the tripe this man was spouting. "You can't tell me how to lead my life. I have it sorted. I can't waste it on football, you know. Football doesn't make money."
The man paused. "Is that really how you feel?" he asked, relaxing just a bit, but not enough for Fudou to dart across him. Then his next words gave him a sucker-punch across the gut. "You valued football enough to bet your scholarship on it. Or were you just following Kageyama's orders?"
Fudou sucked in air through his clenched teeth. He crouched down, and could feel his legs tensing. Football was his scholarship, you fuck! "How- how do you even know about that?" he demanded. "You don't understand what the whole picture was. All this is none of your business. Who are you, anyway? Who do you think you are?"
The ramen man smirked. "Just call me Hibiki. And I'll extend the same courtesy to you, when you do to me." He backed off, and seemed surprised when Fudou didn't immediately bolt off.
"I mean what I say, son. You've got too much potential to wreck your body for. Look at you coughing already. It only gets worse." He walked off, and after a few moments, Fudou was finally able to move again. He turned and walked the other way.
Giving him the freaking sermon… who the hell did that guy think he was?
"Welcome back, dear!" his mother greeted him with a smile. "How was work?" He grunted and she frowned, putting her hand on his shoulder. "You look tired. Why don't you go to bed? Don't overwork yourself, Akio. Remember who's actually supposed to pay the bills here. You have to take care of yourself first and foremost."
Fudou nodded wearily. After the alleyway, any other social encounter was just too exhausting to think about. His mother's words trotted ahead of him and left him behind in their wake. He just wanted to go to his room and sleep.
Every step to his room felt like one too much to take. Eventually, after step after tortuous step, he found himself staring at his bed. His last steps were more of a lurch as he dropped his bag to one side and fell through the air, landing on the bed. His muscles felt like lead and even shuffling up the bed to make himself comfortable felt like a chore. His back hurt, oddly, because he sure didn't remember leaning on it or getting in an odd position that day. Well, except maybe with Maki.
The odd thing was that although he closed his eyes, face-down on his bed, trying desperately to get to sleep, and although every muscle in his body was screaming for rest, he couldn't do just that. Well, it would be more accurate to say that he didn't feel like doing anything, but yet, that there was an unfulfilled hole within himself. If only he knew what to fill it with.
He thought back to the drug, and how for that short, sweet hour, he'd felt like the king of the world. Everything was beautiful, everything sounded like music, Maki was somehow hot, and he'd just loved everyone. And everyone loved him.
With great effort he kicked up with one leg and used the momentum to turn himself over. Now lying on his bed, he cast his eyes up at his boring white ceiling. He shuffled again, flexing his fingers to get some feeling back into them, and hoisting them up across his chest to stretch the muscles.
Then he paused.
He moved his arms back where they had came, before swiping at his vest again. A pool of dread was growing in his gut. He checked several more times, but couldn't find it. It really wasn't there.
His necklace was gone.
"Hey, guys," Fudou muttered as he entered Takan's living room, feeling as shitty as three days ago, when the effects of The Drug had worn off. Wada, Takan, and Maki looked back at him from their various positions on the sofas. Only Wada showed the slightest sad expression, and Takan and Maki looked completely fine, just bored. So he had the shittiest crash out of all of them, huh.
"Cap's a no-show, then?" His voice was raspy and mentally, he cringed, but no one said anything about it.
"He hasn't replied, I texted him," Takan explained. "I guess he couldn't handle the harder stuff."
"Speaking of the harder stuff," Maki said, and her tone shocked Fudou in its coyness. Had she ever sounded this waifish? "You got any more of that, Takan?" She leaned closer to Takan, and Fudou noticed that she had her lip gloss on again, and was it just him, or was she wearing slightly tighter shirts?
Takan looked around before pursing his lips in thought and leaning back. "No," he said. "I couldn't get it from my supplier in time. Sorry, guys. But we just took it, you know? We shouldn't take it too much."
"That's right," Fudou echoed, though it was more of an automatic reaction than anything. "That stuff isn't healthy."
The others looked at him sceptically. "And that's why you have this, right?" Wada smirked, jabbing his bag with one finger. He dropped the money for this week in Fudou's palm, and Takan and Maki followed suit. They reached for his goods, but Fudou held up a hand.
"Any of you guys see my necklace around anywhere?"
Wada and Takan looked at each other, nonplussed. Maki put two and two together.
"Oh, the necklace you wouldn't let me check out the other day." She smirked, and it was ugly. Her next words triggered a flare of anger. "You lost it?"
Fudou took several deep breaths before finally admitting, between gritted teeth, "Yes."
"Try asking Cap about it," Takan offered. "Maybe you left it at his place, after… maybe you left it at his place."
Fudou made a smirk, though it felt forced. "Maybe." He began distributing the smokes and beer cans around. Nobody had mentioned Shogo yet, and nobody probably intended to. Fudou didn't want to think of the kid and his toothy smile, at any rate, and he suspected the others felt the same. He pulled out a cigarette from the case and lit it. The movement felt mechanical and brought him absolutely no thrill. It was only after he inhaled the first bits of smoke that he felt just a bit calmer.
He looked at the others, and the others looked at him.
It was a testament to the network that he'd built for himself that the jobs didn't stop coming even after the group stopped looking for them. Fudou declined most of the ones that came through on his phone, pulling out every lie from the book. School, illness, family issues, dying pets, sports games, field trips, and, his personal favourite, preparing for school abroad. He didn't know why he did that. He was fine and back to normal, but after The Drug, normal was just... boring. It wasn't enough. He wanted to see the bright colours again, hear the swirling patterns in the skies, feel the unique sensations of Ecstasy tickling his skin.
He had a promise to keep to his mum, though, and the gaping hole at his chest only served to force the point even stronger. And out of the few jobs he took, out of so many of the others he'd rejected, there was one that he had no idea would mean so much.
But it was just his luck. The person who opened the door was one of the last people he wanted to see. She was petite, and he recognised her the instant he saw her pink hair, tied in such a way that it wrapped around her left eye and ended in two tails on the side of her head. Her name was Takanashi Shinobu, and she was one of his former Shin Teikoku teammates.
She started and gave him a shifty look. He ignored it and moved forward, waiting for her to let him in. A beat passed before she came back to her senses and backed into her foyer. She beckoned him to wait there and took off up the stairs and into the depths of the house.
Heavier steps came down the stairs and he came face to face with Takanashi's dad. Like her, he had pink hair, but damn if he wasn't the manliest man he had ever seen.
"Hi," he said, resolutely ignoring Takanashi hovering behind her dad. "I'm Fudou, the odd jobs boy. You called?"
Next chapter: We didn't expect Fudou to give up to the forces of reform so easily, did we? He's a tenacious boy! Anyway, now he's come face to face with another remnant of his past. What's he going to do? And you better believe that Hibiki isn't just going to let Fudou go.
