Circular Reality
Chapter 11: Politically Mistaken
As it turned out, Fuji was more than just right. Dinner was as it usually was, with interesting conversations cruising around the table; although Fuji was sure he could have done without all of the loud, "Nya"s and "I challenge you, Kikumaru!"s. Of course, an evening as fine as the one he was having was sure to have a downside (cutting out the banter between Eiji and Gakuto) and it reared its head almost instantly after the servants cleared the remains of the oh-so-scrumptious vanilla cake the group had managed to scarf down.
Politics. Fuji was sure that if he could, he would "cut out its tongue, shoot it, and then shoot its tongue" but sadly, the idea of politics is just that: an idea. And no matter how hard you try, an idea will stay an idea until it's given an embodiment. So who could he scapegoat? Nah, scratch that. Who could he kill so that politics would disappear from his life so he didn't have to wish he could crawl into a dark little corner and plug his ears, humming a tune that he made up on the spot to make the sound go away? The answer was simple. The answer was depressing. The answer was… no one.
Sure, even if he tried to pay attention it didn't work. He'd get sidetracked by some funny little event that happened and then snap back to the conversation a good few minutes later, not knowing what anyone was talking about anymore. Today was even more distracting… and only because two very-human life forms happened to be sitting next to him, annoying the crap out of him. Sure, they didn't actually know they were irritating him (did they? Fuji glanced at them surreptitiously), but that wasn't helping him. Every few minutes one of two things would happen: Tezuka would shift in his seat a bit or gesture as he talked… or Echizen would start fidgeting until Tezuka would look over at him, over Fuji's head (which was really irritating!) and give him a withering glare. Occasionally, both happened at once.
And throughout the entire meeting, all Fuji was able to catch were a few sentences and a whole lot of fragments.
"Ore-sama now calls this meeting to—" Obviously Atobe. Automatically, Fuji tuned him out.
"Yes, but the werewolves—" Sanada.
"They would never expect—" Tezuka.
"This alliance can't—" Yagyuu? Ah, no. Oshitari. Fuji took a moment… how had he confused the two? It was the glasses, the stupid glasses!
"And the ones who kidnapped Syuusuke… who were they?" At this point, Fuji snapped to attention. His sister asking a question was a rare occurrence. And he was curious. Hell, curiosity may have killed the cat, but Fuji was no cat. He thought a moment… poor Eiji.
Atobe paused for dramatic effect. Oshitari sighed and cut him off before he could say a single word, " It was a rogue branch of the human army" that explained the human voices, "Fortunately we didn't kill anyone when we entered the camp." He paused, "You didn't kill anyone, did you Gakuto?" Gakuto chuckled nervously, "Only a couple… you said to make a commotion." Oshitari sighed and continued on, "Fortunately we didn't kill that many when we entered the camp," here he inserted a glare in Gakuto's direction, "and we were able to rescue Fuji without much delay."
Atobe glared at Oshitari for interrupting him, but the damage was done. There was mumbling across the table and Echizen started fidgeting again. And that's all it took to capture Fuji's attention. Yeah, that's right. Fuji had the attention span of a mouse. And a mouse's attention span is almost nonexistent. Like a high school student sitting in class, fiddling with his pencil and staring out the window, Fuji had no intention of paying attention and had every intention of beating answers out of someone, politely of course, when he had the chance to. And it'd have to be soon too. He'd gone one week without knowing anything once and it had driven him absolutely insane.
Nearly an hour and exactly 251 distractions later (not counting the "lets poke Yagyuu" game which Niou played continuously), Fuji was nearly falling asleep. The only thing that kept him awake was an occasional jab in the stomach courtesy of Echizen. It completely brightened his day, knowing that he'd have a gi-normous bruise in the morning.
By the time the meeting was over Fuji wasn't able to feel his stomach and his ribs ached something terrible, but he endured at the thought of sleep, a nice warm bed, and, hopefully but unlikely, a full night of sleep—one without interruptions. Alas, he was so impatient for that dreamtime that as soon as Atobe had finished his speech ending the meeting, he was gliding out the door—the first one to leave.
He expected someone to follow him, but the trip to his room was uneventful. No one came up behind him and started jabbering on and on while he half-listened and no one walked with him. No one paid him any attention whatsoever, in fact, which suited him just fine. He made it to his room quickly and decided on a nice long bath before going to bed. So he made his way to the bathtub and turned the water on, putting in the bath salts left out for him—cherry blossom scented again?!—and waited for the bathtub to fill. He took a good long look at it. Was his bathtub really that big? He paused for a moment. Nah, ½ day updates weren't Atobe's style. He preferred grandiose to inconspicuous. Eh, whatever.
He took his bath, mulling over every possibility of what was said ("note to self: knock answers out of someone soon") before finally giving in and relaxing. Taking his time, he waited until the water started to cool and then got out and went into his room.
"Echizen… what are you doing in my room?"
Blink. "What are you talking about? This is my room."
Pause. "That's beside the point."
"What?"
Longer pause. "Why do you have a bigger bathtub than I do?"
"That's the first thing you thought of?"
"Well it is the most obvious. Ah, and you've got a desk! The next time I see that Atobe…"
Echizen tried to contain his laughter, he really did, it's just that watching an annoyed/pissed off Fuji walking around cursing Atobe and complaining about his room clad only in a towel was an extremely amusing scene. And so the giggles—ahem, the chuckles commenced.
Fuji froze and then turned around slowly, glaring at Echizen who was trying really hard to restrain his laughter, to no avail. He took a moment and then looked down, only then realizing he wasn't in what you would call "proper" attire.
There was a pause, broken intermittently with outbreaks of laughter, and then Fuji finally managed to get out a rather hoarse sounding, "Do you have any clothing I could… borrow?" which just set Echizen into another laughing fit. Scowling, Fuji walked over and smacked Echizen upside the head, muttering about "little boys" and "purple-haired blockheads."
Echizen stopped laughing almost immediately in favor of nursing his head and pouting. Fuji rolled his eyes and then strolled toward Echizen's closet, intent on finding something to wear, with a sulking Echizen trailing behind. And that's when Fuji decided that he hated short people. Why, why, why, why, why did Echizen have to be so small? Stupid chibi. The pants in the closet were three or four sizes too small for him; the shirts probably wouldn't fit him either. Was he cursed? Fuji could swear he was cursed. And he didn't want to take the blame for it, either. Atobe! It was all Atobe's fault. Why did he have to have such a huge castle for a home?
Echizen was still sulking, but he began to help out once Fuji sent him a rather deadly glare. And at that very moment, there was a knock at the door.
Well, there it is. I was actually planning on posting it last week, but my computer was being weird and wouldn't stay on for more than 10 minutes at a time. Then this past week was finals so I had to study—actually… I didn't do much of that, but don't tell my parents. So yeah, that's the scoop.
MidnightSunrise951- Thank you, I'm glad you like it. I'm sorry that chapter wouldn't come up, I hope you've gotten it to work by now… I didn't do anything different when entering it or anything, so I don't think it's that. Well, you know how meetings and stuff are really boring, and we haven't really gotten to the front line, so I can't put all the action in yet. Now the werewolves are a different story altogether. You'll find out who they are when I get to them (I'm not sure how long that'll be from this chapter, but I think it's fairly close). That's the big mystery. Thank you for reading and for the review!
Yoshikochan- Haha, yeah. I'm really sorry about the 11 month wait. I had no intention of making anyone wait that long. Actually, I thought I'd updated in August, but that turns out to be my other story. Eh… yeah. My bad. Actually, I think next year will be a lot harder. I'm going to be in a ton of AP classes (which is a pain) and this year I'm only in two. It's not that difficult really, it's just the sheer amount of homework is staggering.
Well I'm glad you like the character arrangement. I went "Hm… what would be the most random thing this person could be?" And then went with it. Haha, just kidding, just kidding. I actually gave it some thought, but some of them were really hard to get in. Thank you very much, I'll continue to write and hopefully have the next one up in another week or two. Thanks for reviewing!
PheonixShadow- Thank you! I guess the best time for inspiration is during class, after all—though not the kind of inspiration a teacher means. I came up with this during English class freshmen year, I think. It's been a while since I've written (and that's the whole writer's block and homework load thing) but I'm going to continue it and eventually finish it. Well, everyone's got their tastes (personally, I don't like AtoFuji much either, but it makes the story that much more interesting) and I don't blame you if you don't like something. Thank you very much for the review!
thyPOPE- Well, I haven't really updated it in a while, so that's probably why. In fact, I'd say it was somewhere near the end of the search pages for a while there. Thank you! I'm glad you like it. Not many people like this pace, but I think it suits some stories. Other stories are better written at a quicker pace, but for a war story, and especially a story that I've written, is better off at a slow pace. My fast-paced stories aren't all that great. I'm sorry but it looks like you really won't have to wait all that long. Haha, anyway… thank you for reviewing!
