Haha. I bet I totally threw you guys in the loop there! XD Even I didn't expect them to stay in the same condominium, but my fingers have a mind of their own, and I actually like where the story's going. So thanks once again for reading, reviewing and the like!
*IMPORTANT! : WHEN YOU SEE WORDS IN THESE BRACKETS { }, IT MEANS THAT THEY WERE STRIKED OFF. I dunno what's wrong with fanfiction, they don't allow the strike off function in stories or something. It makes a huge difference to the meaning of the story below. So yeah. I'm sorry! And happy reading!
Chapter 10!
The glossy screen of my three month old laptop emitted a dim blue glow, which illuminated my face in a ghostly manner. I sat comfortably under my covers with my hoard of fully pillows propped behind my back, as I ran my fingertips through my blond locks, slightly damp from the recent shower I had emerged from. And it had been one long, long shower.
I remembered the very first bout of awkward silence Yuuichi and I had shared in the elevator. He had probably seen my hand quiver from the aftermath of the initial shock I suffered, pressing the button that would instruct the lift to take me to the sixteenth floor of the apartment block. I barely registered the slender finger that pushed the button to the seventeenth floor, the highest one in the block. My eyebrows had furrowed in confusion, and I wanted to ask him something, anything, but I wasn't sure where to begin. Before I knew it the lift had opened on my floor, and Yuuichi gave me a gentle push into the corridor, and whispered something along the lines of 'see you tomorrow, take care' or the like. But just as with everything else, I wasn't sure what REALLY had happened. I had stumbled to my apartment as if I was inebriated, and somehow managed to enter the flat, and subsequently the shower.
Yuuichi's residence in this very block flung the floodgates of my inquisitive mind right open, and my head throbbed from the flash flood of questions that poured into my mind. What was he doing here? Why hadn't I seen him even come here the entire week? How could he afford to live here? Was anyone else living with him? If he had been staying here since middle school, he must have been loaded at the time to be able to move in when the apartment was just built! Did anyone at school know he was this rich? Had he secretly murdered an unsuspecting apartment owner and stolen the pitiful man's identity for all these years? Was he the elusive Duracell bunny in a non-fuzzy, un-pink disguise? The possibilities were endless.
I was caught up in the gridlock of information in my brain, feeling exactly like it was rush hour, but really, nothing was moving. My thoughts slammed repeatedly into concrete walls at dead ends in the never ending maze that I was completely and utterly lost in. It was so confounding that I barely realised the instant message that popped up on the screen, its azure borders quivering in an almost futile attempt to catch my attention.
"Etsu! I need to thank you!"
I took a quick glance at the ID. Ah, Kichirou.
"Thank me? For?" I typed in my puzzled reply.
"The fishing pole scene!"
I hadn't thought about the fishing pole scene in years. Kaitou and Kichirou had been eleven and nine respectively, and they were on holiday, visiting their long lost sister in the United States. They were taking a break from filming another drama where they were acting alongside each other as onscreen brothers, but they had been having difficulty acting out one particular scene – one where the brothers were fishing, and were amazed when they caught a trout of epic proportions. Kichirou was supposed to hold the fishing rod in astonishment, while Kaitou had to touch the fish tentatively. However, the director was insistent on making the scene seem as believable as possible, and the enormous fish they used in the filming sequence was real, and unfortunately possessed as much of an attitude that a fish could possibly have. It had proven too much for my brothers, and it never stayed still long enough for the scene to be filmed completely, tugging mercilessly on the thread of nylon that separated it from freedom.
"Etsu, I'm not strong enough to hold it," the nine-year old Kichirou whined.
"And I got slapped by the fish!" Kaitou sighed in resignation.
"Kai Onii-san...why don't they just put that black thing on the string?"
"Black thing? What black thing, Etsu?"
"Um...the can-mer-rah," I sounded slowly, "the...camelrah?"
I remembered them bursting into peals of laughter, rolling around in the soft green lawn behind Oji-san's bungalow house. It was strange, because nothing seemed to strike me as funny at the time.
"The things that films our scenes? The camera?" Kaitou was first to recover from his fit of giggles.
"Hai, Onii-san," I continued seriously, "put it on the string, the string that Kichi onii-san holds. Then you two can look at it...and pretend it's the fish!"
I recalled myself gesturing, and doing my best imitation of what I thought my brothers should do. Kaitou seemed to understand where I was getting at, and Kichirou did the same after he had finished crying tears from laughing too hard. After a while, they seemed a little enlightened, and when I saw the drama on air the next month, it felt just like the audience was looking at the adorable faces of the famed Tsuruga brothers through the eyes of a certain indignant trout.
...
"Etsu, you there?"
"Yeah, it looks really good," I commented on the short clip Kichirou had sent me, straight from the director's cut of the latest movie he was starring in.
Taking the liberty to watch the video once more, I was enthralled as Kichirou gently planted a chaste kiss on his co-star's cheek as the borders of the screen were lined by red gossamer paper. The scene had been shot from a camera that had been strategically placed inside the lantern that both actors were holding on to, and it captured the emotions they portrayed beautifully.
"I suggested it, and it turned out fantastic," he enthused, "props go to you, Etsu."
"When's it being released?"
"We wrap up filming next week, and I'll go on tours and promotions for a month or so."
"Congratulations, Nagareboshi," I made reference to the nickname Kaitou and I had given him all those years ago, where he was more like a shooting star than a lucky star, which was what his name meant, "make sure I get to see it with ALL the bloopers!"
"No probs. Oh, I heard our parents took your school by storm today."
"The school nurse has probably never seen such a serious, widespread pandemic of nosebleeds before."
"I went home today and got caught off guard," I winced as I read this, not wanting to imagine what Kichirou could have witnessed. "But I've got to confess, Okasan looks smoking hot in that power suit."
"Kichirou," I warned, "should I save this conversation and show it to Otousan?"
"Ah, he knows I'm a playboy, so it won't be anything serious."
"Gosh, Onii-san, is there any woman you wouldn't hit on?"
"You." His reply was instantaneous. "Okasan's barely a B, but yours is flatter than a plateau!"
"My eye just twitched. I expect you to have the sense to know how much trouble you'll be in the next time we cross paths."
"But I still love you all the same! BYE!" He hastily logged off.
I glared at the computer with an interesting mix of contempt and amusement, and then closed it slowly, before proceeding to bury myself in a mountain of books as I burned the midnight oil. Kichirou had been rather helpful, as he had kept my mind off other things, doing enough to distract it from a certain nagging issue. Studying seemed to be a rather effective way to avert my attention and brain cells from doing something completely unnecessary; keeping them occupied for a while.
I was glad my thoughts regarding my inadequacies weren't hounding me as much as they had been this afternoon, but now I had a new problem on my hands. If I even paused my frantic studying for a while, my brain would begin formulating irritating questions that plagued me without avail. I had never been this intrigued about anything in my whole sixteen years of existence, not even when I wondered about how my family went about their jobs or schedules. Not even about my past, or even about how Okasan and Otousan met. None of those situations piqued my curiosity to such an extent that I feared my mind wasn't mine to control any longer. Lucidity was a precious commodity that I sought after, and the condition I was in seemed entirely ridiculous to me, so much so that I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry in confusion, but there was one thing I was sure of.
I couldn't stop thinking about Yuuichi.
...
My sheets were tousled and splayed about the bed as I squirmed under the covers, unable to stop the trains of thought in my mind from careening dangerously near the edge of mental cliffs. I tossed and turned. The digital clock reminded me that 3am was no time for a student like me to still be awake. I tossed and turned some more.
A good fifteen minutes passed before I dragged my weary body off the mattress, and my feet slipped into warm slippers that I had left beside the bed. They shuffled against the marble flooring, and my feet took me to an unpacked cardboard box in the hallway that had been an innocent victim of my laziness and reluctance to put it away. I lifted the box and brought it to my room, setting it down soundlessly before flicking the switch for the lights on.
It wasn't long till I found what I was looking for. The plain-looking converse shoebox seemed rather old and possibly even unsightly, but it held all my most treasured possessions. I scanned each piece of paper desperately, as if hoping I'd be able to unearth something in the letters that might be of use. Unfortunately, the amazing advice that had been given to me in the form of the written word was only applicable to my circumstances in the past, and provided no answer to my current infection of curiosity. I sighed in disappointment and settled for the comfort and amusement the letters brought me instead. They were beginning to turn a pale yellow, and I sincerely hoped that the ink used would not fade too much.
I was nine when my elementary school teacher handed me the first letter. I couldn't remember her name, and her face seemed blurry in my memory banks, but I knew she had a warm smile which she never hesitated to show.
"Etsuko, I've noticed you've always seemed sad, so I got a special fairy to write you a letter."
"Sensei, fairies don't exist," I shook my head, disappointed with my teacher for not realising that most children would have lost their belief in mythical beings at the age of eight, although Okasan still insisted they were real for some very strange reason.
"Ah, but he really is a fairy," she handed me the letter and tousled my hair, "and I encourage you to reply it."
"He?"
"Ah, some fairies are male too. How do baby fairies come about if there aren't male fairies around?"
"Sensei, I can't believe you're an adult – fairies don't exist."
"Give your reply to me, and I'll call UPS to deliver it," she winked.
"UPS?" I asked incredulously, "they deliver? Without thinking you're insane?"
"Unicorn Parcel Services," she stated without showing any sign of laughter. "Oh, and forgive him if his handwriting isn't as neat as it should be. Fairies these days don't practice their penmanship as much as they should."
I shook my head a little, and the scene stopped replaying in my head. My hand reached for the letter at the bottom of the stack, and I gingerly pulled out the precious first letter that I had received from the "fairy".
Dear Etsu,
(Is it okay if I call you Etsu? My {mom} human guardian asked me to call you that.)
Fairies know everything, and I know you've been real sad all the time.
Um...
Don't be sad!
Please?
Yours truly,
A fairy.
It wasn't long, and it seemed ridiculous when I read it at the time. I was intelligent enough at ten to notice that he was probably sensei's son, thanks to his failure to use liquid paper or correction tape to remove all traces of his error. Grinning at the thought, I remembered writing back to him the very next morning, telling him the same thing that had I told sensei; that fairies didn't exist.
Dear Fairy,
You don't exist.
Regards,
Etsu
(P.S. Yes, you can call me Etsu.)
His reply was prompt, and I received a letter the following day.
Dear Etsu,
You're right, I'm not a fairy.
I'm a pokemon.
Yours truly,
A pokemon.
(P.S. Are you still sad?)
I heard myself let out a rare giggle, almost identical to how I laughed the first time I read that letter, and I ran my fingers through my blond hair yet again. Reading the letters had to be therapeutic.
Dear Pokemon,
Which pokemon are you?
Regards,
Etsu
(P.S. Not really. You made me laugh.)
I rummaged through the shoebox and found letter number three.
Dear Etsu,
I'm not telling! HAH!
Yours truly,
{Squirtle}
{Charmander}
Jigglypuff.
(P.S. I'm glad. I like your laugh. Laugh more okay?)
It was around this time I asked sensei how he would know my laugh. Did fairies/pokemon have databases full of laughs belonging to different people? But sensei just smiled that warm smile of hers.
Dear Jigglypuff,
Why won't you tell me which pokemon you are? I'll be sad if you don't!
Regards,
Etsu
(P.S. How'd you know what my laugh sounds like? And why Jigglypuff?)
The fourth letter from him peeked out from among the other letters.
Dear {Etsu} Pikachu,
You've got blond hair.
So that name's perfect for you.
Yours truly,
Jigglypuff.
(P.S. I know everything, remember? And you'll know why - next time.)
I smiled to myself as I returned the letters to the box, arranging them carefully and placing the whole shoebox in a cabinet, one which I could lock if I wanted to. I did so, and placed the key on my table, before returning to bed with a dreamy smile on my face, and falling soundly asleep.
...
YEAH! Okay that's chapter ten! I hoped it was fun to read! Thanks for doing so, and please review so I know how I'm doing! XD