Breakdown
Chapter 7: Balinese
Yohji was happy that half the swooning fan girls rushed out of the Koneko to watch Ran as he marched down the sidewalk, though he would have been happier had they all chosen to do so. But at least he was only being stared at expectantly by half the usual swarm.
Yohji looked down into the questioning and slightly alarmed faces of the fan girls who flocked to him, and gave them a lopsided grin, scratching the back of his head. Usually the smooth talker, he was surprised to find that he couldn't think up an excuse to tell them. Ran's attitude had completely caught him off guard.
It wasn't uncommon for the grim redhead to retreat to the storeroom to cool off. Ran always came back out with something in hand; potters, cutters, whatever was on had to make it look as if the trip to the backroom had been purposeful to the shop, but Yohji knew better. Ran just needed a breather.
This time, however, he'd chosen the opposite direction and Yohji very much doubted that the redhead would be reappearing after the usual five to ten minute cool down period.
"Are you alright?"
Yohji felt a tug on his arm and it was only then that he realized that he had a bright eyed fan girl attached to it. He hoped it didn't require and operation to have it removed.
He nodded and looked around at the girls again, still at a loss for words. He really didn't know what to tell them. And even though everyone had seen what had gone on, it had been Yohji's fault, so he felt he owed them some form of an explanation.
The trouble of course was coming up with one. Only the truth kept surfacing in his mind; he had gotten a little too friendly with Ran, the redhead had taken a hissy, popped him in the stomach and stomped out of the shop.
But maybe that would do. Maybe he just had to point out the obvious.
Yohji cleared his throat, hushing the excited chatter of the school girls instantly. All eyes turned to him and he could swear he heard the distinct chirp of crickets when he opened his mouth and nothing came out.
Nothing came out because he really didn't have anything to say. Apparently even his mouth had decided it wasn't wasting it's time stating exactly what everyone had seen.
Yohji Kudou, playboy extraordinaire, was speechless for the first time in his life and it was a rather horrifying revelation.
He could have kissed Ken full on the mouth a second later when he heard a loud crash from the storeroom and a string of muffled curses uttered by none other than Ken Hidaka, the walking, talking, accident-waiting-to-happen; Yohji's godsend. Yohji had never been happier than he was right now to be sharing a shift with his clumsy partner.
It was at times like these that Yohji wondered how Ken, a.k.a. Siberian, made such a good assassin. On a mission, he was as graceful in a fight as a man fighting with bugnuks could be, slightly better than a barroom brawler because he was still quick and agile, but in everyday life he was a spaz.
In Yohji's opinion, they wouldn't have had to sweep the shop half as often if Ken was just kept out of it. Objects just seemed to tip over and break when the brunette was around.
Still, everyone had to pull their weight in the shop. And Yohji did his part by keeping the fan girls occupied and away from Weiss' icy, redheaded assassin as much as he could when he shared a shift with Ran. And it hurt the playboy's pride a little to admit that it was a difficult task, even for him.
Yohji hadn't been lying when he said that Ran was sexy. It was a well-known fact, or at least those who gossiped in the shop seemed to share that opinion. Yohji could remember hearing the words gorgeous and mysterious used by the fan girls quiet frequently as well. So apparently being a cold, anti-social bastard was a turn-on.
Yohji secretly agreed.
And he knew that Ran never took notice of his efforts to draw the school girls' attentions to him and off of the redhead. Yohji wouldn't be accused of slacking so much if Ran paid a little more attention to the gawking eyes trained on him and less attention to that fact that the girls attached to those eyes weren't buying anything.
'If you're not buying anything, get out;' the infamous words that fell on deaf ears every time Ran spoke them. Yohji always had to make a conscious effort not to roll his eyes when he did He also had to stop himself from replying with 'Honey, do you honestly think they're going anywhere when they have someone like YOU to stare at?'
The playboy was glad that his self control worked on the occasion because he probably would have been given a real shiner for saying something like that….not that an elbow to the ribs had been any better.
Ran should be more grateful to him, Yohji decided. Sure, he rarely did even a quarter of the things that Ran asked him to do, but that was for the redhead's benefit. He had to make a decision. Yohji couldn't trim stems and distract a dozen or more fan girls at one time. He just wasn't that good at multitasking and sometimes the power of his charm could only go so far.
It was so damn hard being Yohji Kudou sometimes, especially during a shift with the mysterious Ran Fujimiya.
"Excuse me ladies," Yohji smiled sadly, "But it looks like our dear Ken has made a mess and I have to go help him clean it up."
"Is he alright?" One of the girls asked immediately.
Yohji shrugged. "I don't know, but if he has a booboo I'll be sure to let him know that there are plenty of girls that want to kiss it better tomorrow," he said, putting extra emphasis on the last word.
"But what about now?" All the girls whined in unison, realizing suddenly that Yohji wasn't just going to the storeroom to check on Ken, he was trying to kick them all out of the shop too.
"Don't worry," Yohji soothed, "I'm sure he's alright and you can see him tomorrow." He tried again.
"But how can you be sure he's alright?" Another girl asked. "What if it's serious? What if he has to go to the hospital?"
The Koneko erupted in one giant gasp and suddenly simple clumsiness became a life or death situation to the girls.
Yohji sighed. Ken probably just tripped and broke one of the arrangements, though given that it was Ran who had made them, Ken might think about buying a one way ticket to a safer country.
"Hey Kenken! You alright?" Yohji called out to the brunette for the sake of the fan girls little beating hearts.
Ken grumbled something which Yohji decided should be edited for younger ears and grinned at the girls. "There, you see? He's fine."
"I want to buy him flowers!" A girl to Yohji's left shouted, eyes wide and excited as if what she had just said had been the most novel idea ever.
"NO! I want to buy him flowers!" Another girl cried. Of course it was suddenly a competition and a bid for Ken's affection.
Yohji sighed heavily, very close to having a Ran moment himself, but he kept up the cheery smile. "I'm sure Kenken would love to have flowers from you ladies, but you'll have to buy them tomorrow. We have a little bit of a mess to clean up right now so we're closing the shop early."
Yohji ignored their protests this time and ushered them out of the shop, turning the sign around in the window so that it read 'closed.' He then went to check on Ken and the situation was worse than he'd previously assumed.
"But…how?" Yohji gawked from the doorway and Ken just stood there shaking his head while grumbling under his breath.
In some spectacular fashion, that Yohji couldn't even imagine, Ken had somehow managed to tip over a stack of heavy bags of potting soil onto all the arrangement that he'd carried into the back so far. That meant that the first four had bit the dust. And Yohji didn't even want to guess how he'd done that, or why he'd even placed the arrangements on the floor instead of on the free shelf to begin with.
All Yohji knew was that they'd be booking two tickets to a far of land instead of one, because they were both dead men once Ran came home…if he came home and saw his morning's worth of hard work crushed under a pile of dirt.
It really sucked to be Yohji Kudou sometimes.
