Filum Fatalis
Summary: Threads have always been used to sew and patch ruined clothes. In the case of one prideful boy and one gluttonous girl, invisible threads have always been sewing them, patching them, drawing and pulling them close together, no matter how much others have tried to put them apart.
Chapter Twenty-One: Solitas
A/N: Dat feedback. *me gusta* I-I just thought that no one wanted to read this fic anymore since every chapter is long. I thought that ya'll wanted a chapter to be like, too short or something. T^T But anyhow, since I got enough feedback stating that most of you wanted long chapters, then I shall continue doing it. :D
Shopping, as some called it, would make people feel happy because of what they bought from store to store. To possess the things their greedy eyes want and need and desire from window to window, from store to store. It was to please themselves, and sometimes, to please their loved ones waiting at home. The downside was—as it had always been—spending too much money on the things that they don't really need in their pathetic and pitiful lives.
A deeply contemplating Neuro failed to understand, however, why every single store that he had seen would have a very long line of grumbling customers in front of the counter.
Every single time.
"Yako. Amuse me."
"Neuro. I can't just amuse you with a snap of a finger. I'm not a clown."
"Maybe if I pour a plaster of Paris on your face, you will look like one. What do you call it—? Oh yes, 'foundation' was it?"
"That's not what it's made of, dummy."
"Aww. Would you like me to make a new kind of foundation for you, then? It will make you look like a walking cement block—suits you well, I must say!"
Yako sighed from beside him, and pouted at the long line that they were going through. They have been standing in line for about a quarter of an hour, and they were still behind a dozen of persons before it would be their turn.
Neuro tapped his foot impatiently and crossed his arms as his eyes flitted from racks upon racks of various female intimate apparel, his scowl becoming more and more apparent as time passed by. Accompanying Yako to her trip to the lingerie boutique sounded easy enough for him, as he had no complaints in going to such a store—rather than deciding to just loiter in front of the said boutique like most of the men were while waiting for their girlfriends or wives. Neuro peered back at the entrance of the shop, and surely enough, there was a string of grumbling men leaning or sitting against the glass panes.
He huffed.
He couldn't do that to Yako. If there was one thing he was good at, it was that he had never once let Yako have an ounce of privacy when it comes to her undies and clothes. He seemed to know every single piece of clothing she owned in her closet and drawers—day and night clothes, cocktail dresses, formal gowns (she had five), kimonos and yukatas, casual clothes, the pairs of school socks she owned (she had six), her clothes for each season, her eternally unused bikinis (he always forbade her to wear such a thing in public beaches), and even her childish and mature underwear. He knew and memorized them all, which was why he could say that he was comfortable when being faced with the complex puzzle that was the world of girl's lingerie—only if said lingerie belonged to his fiancée, of course.
There were several types of underwear as far as he knew it, and while waiting in line, he pondered the complexities of the female intimate apparel as he eyed the rows and rows of undergarments.
There's thermal, tank top, bikini—high and low-sided, and the string type—G-string, tanga, thong. The O-back and T-back. There's also the brassiere, the bane of all women's choices. A t-shirt type, a balconette, the strapless type, there's the demi type, the padded type, there's the one for sports, and the push-up type—Yako has three of the push-up ones, I think. Hm...
The line moved just a bit, and he sighed as he looked to his left.
Boyshorts. Panties—control ones (is that spandex over there?), crotchless panties, French cut, and the hipster.
His critical green eyes slid to his far left, and he blinked.
Now those are hard to memorize. Hm. There's the babydoll (Yako has taken a fancy of them lately), the basque, the bedjacket, bloomers, lots of shapewear—she doesn't need those slimming things, bah. The bodice, corset and bustier (I'd like to see that on her). The camisole and the teddy. The chamice. The corselet and corsage. Oh, the French maid (must buy her some of those for her one day). Girdles and garter belts. Granny panties... what. Hosieries. Negligees. Petticoats and pettipants—for the lolitas, I think. Slips and robes—she doesn't use those, either. Torsolettes.
Tilting his head this way and that, his curious eyes roamed for something that would fit Yako well—
His eyes landed on a very familiar row of boxed underwear, and without a second thought, he tapped Yako and went over to where his current line of interest was.
He looked at what it said on the box and grinned. Ah, now that was what he had been looking for.
He returned to where Yako was, still standing and shifting one foot to another, and back. She looked at Neuro curiously, and without a word, he happily showed her what he had gotten.
"...Cherry and honey-flavored underwear... Another edible bra?" and she gaped as she saw him nodding quite excitedly like a child that had just seen his most favorite toy. She sighed in defeat, there was no winning over Neuro and his fantasies of her—she wasn't the one to complain about that, in fact. "Fine. But you'll be paying for it."
He nodded eagerly once more, his hair bobbing and swaying wildly with each nod as he did so. And Yako laughed.
Yako looked at the note that was stuck on the fridge, and sighed. "They'll be gone for a week. Again." The sound of her socked feet padded on the cold wooden floors as she went to the living room and looked at Neuro, who was putting the shopping bags on the couch with a hidden smile. "Neuro? Would you like some somen?"
In response, he snorted, looking at his newest pair of shoes as he did so. "Somen? Really? Cold noodles? Are you trying to make me laugh?"
She giggled at his reaction, "Sorry. Um, how about the oden that we bought?"
He shrugged as now looked at the box of edible underwear that he brought for her, "That will do. And tonkatsu. And croquettes."
"And nikujaga!"
Neuro smiled at her suggestion, "Yes, yes. Nikujaga. Now get on to it. We're hungry."
Yako did as she was told, and from a distance, Neuro could hear her hollering a quick "I'll make dorayaki for dessert!" to which he yelled a quick affirmative.
Quickly taking out his phone, he checked out the current state of the entire house during their short absence. Seeing none, he then looked at one of his eyebugs which was sitting near the coffee table. Satisfied and smiling, he put his phone back to his pocket, only to hear it blare out a deafening tone.
Taking out his phone once more, the screen flashed an angry red. Tapping a button to see where the intruder was, a flashing red dot appeared at the bottom of the screen—it was near the layout of the house.
He could hear Yako's flurry of steps from the kitchen as she dashed out to check on him. "Neuro? What was that noise?"
He glanced at her worried countenance, and with no hesitation, he pulled out his Wenger Giant Swiss Army knives hidden in his socks, making her gasp. Seeing her about to make a comment on something that would likely involve him collaborating with violence, he immediately held a finger to his lips, a she clamped her mouth shut.
The phone screen indicated that the intruder was near the front door.
Figures.
He glared at the door, readying his stance to strike the moment he opened it—
—only to grumble and sigh in annoyance at the sight of Zera dressed in his hideous maid uniform, wailing and prostrating himself on the doormat.
"Neuro-sama! I have seen the error of my ways! Please take me under your wing again! I-I beg of you! You and Yako-sama! Waah!"
Yako then curiously peered behind Neuro, blinking at Zera who seemed to be performing the kowtow repeatedly for some time now. A steady drip of blood was now flowing down his forehead.
She suddenly felt pity for the poor thing.
"Neuro, we better let him inside. It's cold out here," she whispered to her skeptical fiancé, touching his arm as she did so. Neuro merely groaned and tucked away his knives in his pockets, glaring at his caretaker with a snarl.
"He better be having blue balls by the time he enters this house," and he huffed, walking away from the door. When he didn't hear the sound of the door shutting, he looked back at Yako, who seemed to be thinking of whether to let Zera in or not. "Yako, just close the door if you don't want him here."
Knocking out of her thoughts, Yako shook her head and kindly offered Zera to enter the house, to which the transvestite—the term 'fruitcake' suits him well—eagerly agreed to.
"Yako-sama! I'll never disappoint you ever again! I'll never take advantage of your—gghrk!"
"Don't go around hugging her then, you cretin. Unless you want me to slice your disgusting hands."
"Neuro, don't strangle him!"
Neuro suddenly looked at her innocently, then back at the blue-faced Zera. "B-but I was having fun strangling him with my bare hands. His face is so unpleasant it makes me want to burn his hideous mug in acid..."
"Let go of him already! Sheesh."
Neuro jutted his lip in an attempt to look pitiful, and when he was met with a stern glare from Yako, he dropped the blameless look altogether, it being replaced by a glower and a snarl at Zera as he let him go, feeling slight satisfaction at the wheezing and coughing man kneeling on the floor. Yako sighed and mentally prepared herself for the torture that she was sure would happen to her for ordering him—
"Yako. Take a rest. Let this putrid and revolting thing make dinner for tonight," he declared, still sadistically smirking and looking down on Zera as he spoke. When Zera looked up at Neuro, (s)he heard another order from those thin lips. "We're having tonkatsu, croquettes, nikujaga—and dorayaki for dessert. Also, heat up the oden in the kitchen. And prepare oolong tea. Hurry up! Don't slack off and get on to it," and he snorted as he walked away from Zera to return to the living room to get his shoes and Yako's edible brassiere.
When Yako was sure that he was out of earshot, she whispered to the still snot-nosed and tear-and-blood-stained Zera.
"I'd say that that's his way of telling you he forgives you," she looked at the baffled caretaker and giggled. "Just don't do it again. If you happen to do it again, I won't be so forgiving, okay?"
Zera watched Yako giggling and winking at him, and at the back of his mind, he could sense that she would definitely be not as forgiving as before if he made another mistake.
He gulped.
Neuro-sama's sadism is rubbing off on her...!
After being served a hefty dinner, Zera then formally declared his loyalty to Neuro and Yako, and only to them alone, to which the young couple accepted, though with a bit of skepticism from Neuro's part. Yako however, was willing to compromise.
She offered to let Zera stay for the night, as it had already been past eleven o'clock when they had finished talking about certain things and she wouldn't want him to go wandering in the dark. Neuro was adamant that Zera should sleep on the couch without a blanket, however. Let him suffer for a bit, was what he said. Unsurprisingly, Zera obeyed without complaints, much to Neuro's dismay. He was expecting some crying and pleading here and there.
Neuro kept a close watch on him by putting ten of his forty eyebugs in the living room, surrounding Zera alone. Yako thought it was too much of Neuro, but the blond thought otherwise. For the safety of their privacy was Neuro's reason, and she silently left it at that.
Neuro may have forgiven Zera for his traitorous and deceitful behavior, but it didn't mean that he would be lax and turn a blind eye on the transvestite's previously double-faced ways. Not that he would tell that to Yako.
The tick told me that he severed ties with my parents, but I doubt it. He hasn't proven himself worthy of my trust.
As he laid down to sleep with Yako after showering with her for an hour—putting the edible bra on her certainly made her feel frisky, and they stayed in the bathroom performing only foreplay, too!—he couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy about the matter with Zera and his apparent and troublesome blabbing.
And the faint sound of footfalls outside the bedroom door made him curious.
"Zera?" he called out loudly, which stirred Yako from her slumber.
The door creaked open, and surely, there was Zera blinking through the little gap. "Yes, Master?" he asked.
"Where are you going?" Neuro countered. Zera noted that the young couple was draped in blankets, their clothed forms peeking just a tad from the edges of the comforter. Neuro had one arm wrapped around Yako, who had her back turned towards the door. Even she had an arm wrapped around them.
Zera felt a bit envious of their state.
"Zera, I'm asking you a question."
"Hm? Oh-! Yes. Um, I was about to go to the washroom and—"
Neuro then scoffed, "Is that so? Well, you're better off, then. Just make sure you won't jack off or something."
Zera gasped, "Neuro-sama!" and he squealed when a book went flying to his face, effectively shutting the door as he went.
Hearing a soft grumble from beside him, Neuro hushed and patted Yako's head softly. His arm reached out to turn off the bedside lamp, and he scooted closer to her.
From outside the bedroom door, a sole eyebug crept near the bathroom, and it watched the slightly opened bathroom door, seeing Zera begin to unzip his skirt as he stood over the toilet bowl.
The eyebug then hastily went away.
Wednesday came by and went, and by the time their school day ended, Yako felt quite tired, while Neuro remained as chipper as a kitten.
She dragged her feet on the school grounds, her hand loosely clasped onto Neuro's arm as he led her towards the school gates.
"Reviewing for universities suck... I wanna die..."
Neuro huffed, smiling calmly still as he stopped and held her hand instead, "Bah. You're just not studying enough. Your pathetically paramecium of a brain won't be able to take even a sliver of information about anything under the sun."
"So cruel..." she mumbled, yet even so, she forced herself to catch up to his side and nuzzled her cheek on his sleeve, to which the latter chuckled in return.
At the entrance gates, parking near the lamp post, was the familiar black sedan car from before, and standing near it was Aya, finely-dressed and elegant as always.
Yako muttered a curse as she looked at that smug face, but she was in no mood to pick a fight—not after that hell-bound cramming from earlier. All her energy was taken by the evils of studying for the university exams.
Neuro definitely felt Yako stiffen the moment she saw the blonde, and he deeply sighed, and his calm smile fell from his face as they approached Aya.
"Oh, hello again, Katsuragi-chan! Had a nice day?" she greeted with a smile and a wave, and Yako responded with a mere poker face and a snort as she tugged on Neuro's arm quite forcibly as they walked away from the taller female.
Yako could hear Aya muttering a German curse and another insult which she was quite familiar with, and Yako, being the indignant being that she was at the moment, thought of performing her murderous thoughts to reality there and then, but as soon as she turned around to curse Aya to hell, all Yako saw was Neuro's back. Eh?
All Yako's musings of saying something insulting to Aya's face had taken a grinding halt as Neuro spoke in a language she had little familiarity with.
His voice held malicious intent as he smiled at Aya—his cheerful expression didn't match with his baritone voice dripping with deadly venom.
"Schlampe. Bitte. Geh und stirb. Eh heh!" And with that said, he smugly walked away, carrying Yako on his right arm as he did so, reveling at the stunned and crestfallen look that Aya had.
Aya silently watched them walk away from her. She gritted her teeth at the sight of Neuro's retreating form, and with a low snarl, she glared at the now crumpled picture that she had been holding in her petite hand.
Zera had returned to Neuro's house after a day of staying in Yako's home, and by the time they returned from school, a table full of a hearty meal was already waiting for them in the kitchen, along with a scrawled note attached near the still steaming pot of rice. It said that Zera apologized for what happened, and hoping that his master and mistress would take his dishes as a form of apology.
Yako immediately forgave Zera with a squeal. Neuro merely huffed as he unbuttoned the first three buttons of his uniform and sat on the chair and began to eat.
"You know how to speak German? Why didn't you tell me?" Yako asked, changing the topic upon seeing Neuro's scowl regarding his caretaker.
"Heh. Of course I should. I was born there after all."
Yako made a sound of awe as she looked at Neuro, and her previous sour mood about Aya—her words still rang in her ears (She called me a pig! It's only okay if Neuro said that to me!)—shifted as she bounced on her feet as they she washed her hands. "Does that mean that you know how to make sweet farina casserole?"
"What? No! How should I know how to cook? That's Zera's job. My job is to eat food. Your job is to feed me. Now sit, maggot."
She obeyed and eagerly ate her first dish—a plate of pasta carbonara. Blinking at the quietly eating Neuro, she formulated a question in her head, and without thinking, she blurted out a grumbled "Do you missh yer hom'?" in between forkfuls of pasta.
She was not at all surprised when his reply was a lilting hum and a small lopsided smile as he ate his food. Neuro looked at Yako with a distant gaze.
"If I were missing my home, I would have returned there a long time ago. Probably even before I met you. Since you are still looking and talking to me at this moment, I would say that, no, I never once missed it."
Feeling something tugging at her heart, Yako suddenly felt the need to comfort him in any way that she could.
Watching the nightly news always bored her to death. Yako, after observing Neuro's behavior for all these years, still didn't know what he found so fascinating about the whole thing, aside from being updated with the events of the world, of course.
"What? I thought that guy got hanged already!" exclaimed a popcorn-eating Yako, who was sitting on the carpeted floor with a surprised look on her face. Neuro had been occupying the couch with his tall self for the past hour, and he was enjoying the news, that, and added the various expressions that Yako sported, made watching TV seem interesting enough.
"You should watch the news more often. Who knows? Maybe someone might find a way to eradicate all the cockroaches and all the other disgusting bugs in the world. You should go into hiding if that happens! I bet it will be you who will be the first to go poof!"
Yako's eye twitched. "Why do you look so happy, then."
"Heh."
The dull drone of the television served as their white noise, and a comfortable silence fell upon them, and it was only broken by the sudden ringing of the phone near the foyer.
Yako stood up automatically and left the room to answer it. As she left, she was unaware of the gleaming pair of green eyes trained on her backside.
A languid smile fell upon Neuro's lips, and when he could no longer see her, he opted to look at the half-eaten bowl of popcorn and feasted upon it.
A few minutes passed, and Yako returned to the living room with a smile on her face.
"It was Aomi-san. She... he... apologized for what happened," she pursed her lips and stared off in space for a moment, and she sighed as she went to carefully sit on Neuro's stomach.
"Your place is on the floor, sow bug."
"But it's comfortable here."
"Do I look like a couch to you, you hippo?"
In response, she laughed, and straddled his stomach instead. "No, but you look like a horse to me. Giddy up!" Emphasizing her point, she placed her hands on his chest and playfully nudged his shin with her foot.
He chuckled, and smiled lopsidedly at her as he lightly held her hips, and without hesitation—
—he smacked her right butt cheek. Hard.
He reveled in the way her body suddenly stiffened as she gasped, and how her eyes widened and her mouth fell agape as he saw a bit of her pinkish tongue.
Seeing as she was too speechless to utter a mere word of protest, and thinking that she enjoyed the sudden spank, he did it again on the other butt cheek. Twice as hard.
Yako let out another choked gasp, and her neck snapped back as her chest stuck out and her back arched and her toes curled. He did it one more time for a good measure, in between her now sore buttocks, and he smirked triumphantly when she trembled and let out a cry and collapsed on top of him, panting, her nether regions warm and quivering from the earlier treatment she received.
Her eyelids drooped, and her fingers idly kneaded Neuro's chest like a contented cat, sighing upon feeling her head being gently patted.
"You're getting more masochistic, kitten. Usually it takes about ten butt slaps for you to crumble in defeat, but now..." he trailed off, and seemed amused by her contented sighs.
Yako merely squirmed and whined, rubbing her head on his chin as she did so. Neuro simply smiled, and he held her.
"Is that your way of telling me to rub you until you endlessly squirt again?"
She gasped at his words, and she ground her hips to his in a silent affirmative.
The familiar view of the city below from the glass windows seemed unnerving as of late.
Aya paced her room back and forth, her face scrunched in all seriousness as she wiped the tears that had dampened her cheeks, and she spoke in hurried German on her phone, her words too fast to understand by the person on the other line. When asked to repeat what she said, Aya sighed and tried to calm her nerves.
"I can't do this anymore, Mutti. He is very taken with her! Enamored! Captivated! Enthralled! He follows her like a lifeline and protects her like his own flesh! I can't stand it—seeing myself following this person whom I know will never love me back is just... It's killing me."
She paused, and she let out another sob, "No! I am not going to do this anymore! I've tried everything I could—I can't just steal him from her! Mutti, they are in love—how many times must I say it! ...Look, I don't care if they get angry at me, you're the one who arranged this deranged folly! You and that couple! I never wanted to get married to a man who doesn't even love me! ...You know what. Now I know why he left them—he was suffering from the loss of love from his parents who only wanted to get their pockets fat. They never cared for his son! Every time I see him with that girl, it was as if she is his family, even if he's with her parents! ...Of course I should know it, hah, I've stooped to stalking just to see what kind of woman he had taken fancy of. You see how far I have fallen? I have taken such a drastic measure for this man! All for this family! ...I see you're trying to change the subject, Mutti. How convenient of you. Very well. Her parents are the complete opposite of his. No wonder he never left their house. He has all the love he needs."
She stopped in her restless pacing, and a pang of pain shot through her heart at the realization of what she just said.
A lone tear rolled down her dampened cheek.
"...he has all the love he needs..."
And Aya hung up her phone, her honey-brown eyes staring blankly into space as she muttered loneliness from her lips.
It was one of the rare days that the girls hanged out. Yako, Kanae and Mutsuki went to different tea houses (courtesy of Yako), makeup and perfumes stores and fashion boutiques, and bought accessories for themselves as they passed by the teenage-aimed malls.
The usual group of six split up for the meantime, as the girls went from mall to mall and the boys went from karaoke sessions to drinking beers. It was nearing winter break, and the ever stinging cold was felt throughout the city. It was Kanae's idea in the first place that they should hang out in their respective gender groups from time to time; that, and the fact that they were already in their senior year in senior high—time would be slipping and fading fast from their still fledgling fingers once January comes.
Getting ready for the third term, cramming for the university exams, the heartbreaks that would ensue, the farewell hugs and tears that would surely flow once graduation day crept closer as the days passed by—the dreaded things such as the painful sorrow of leaving friends and the rush of excitement and nervousness of what will come to their lives in the future would be swept aside for now.
Today was a time for fun, to momentarily freeze the cruel passage of eternal time, to forget responsibilities for a fleeting wink, to take a break from the bittersweet reality that they were about to face once they return to their normal lives.
It wasn't everyday that you get to live your life in the spring of your youth, after all.
Neuro, as Yako predicted, texted her every half an hour to check if they were all right and not "wrecking havoc in Akihabara" as he said. She, in turn, texted him if he was yet to be drunk in the pub they were currently in. Karaoke sessions were definitely not Neuro's choice of passing time, and he grumbled curses through the phone when he called her as the girls made their way to one of the cat cafés near the district.
From the background, Yako could hear a butchered rendition of a song she was quite familiar with—and she was very sure that that was Shinobu's voice drunkenly slurring in between hiccups and teeth-scraping, ear-splitting, trying-hard-to-reach sopranos echoing in the background as Neuro talked with annoyance and exasperation.
Poor him.
After telling Neuro where she was at the moment, and after giving him a few more words of encouragement in enduring Shinobu's horrible singing voice, Yako hung up her phone and caught up with her friends as they entered Neko JaLaLa.
They sat and ordered food from what seemed to be their fifth tea house for the day, except for this particular house, not only they get to have an afternoon snack, they would also be interacting with the fuzzy and furry little felines scattered inside the café.
While waiting for their teas and cakes, Yako played with a male ginger-and-white Maine Coon, which had feral green eyes that fondly reminded her of her fiancé. Cooing and patting it twice on the head, it hissed at her and tried to swipe at her hand, but Yako merely laughed. When it tried to claw on her knee this time—as she was squatting on the carpeted floor—she glared at the cat's eyes, and it slowly withdrew its claws back to its furry paw pads and averted her gaze, as though blinking at the wall to its right.
Yako stifled a smile and patted its back all the way to its long and furry tail, and the cat remained averting its gaze.
So what Neuro said was true. If you glare at a cat, the feline would consider it as a threat, and a cat looking away is seen as a sign of submission.
Yako made a contained sound of a squeal as she put the now non-threatening cat on her denim-clad lap, and she began to nuzzle it.
Mutsuki too, shared the contained squeal of glee as a clowder of one-year-old cats approached her near her feet. Kanae merely softly smiled as a lone gray, blue-eyed Shorthair purred and circled her leg with a faint meow and a playful paw nudging her perfectly-painted toes.
After having their orders delivered at their table, Yako sadly returned to her seat, not before quietly putting the cat back on the floor, smiling when the Coon immediately stretched its furry and flexible body and yawned as it rested in a corner to curl up and sleep.
"This place is nice," commented Yako with a wide smile towards the waitress, "this is my first time being in a cat café. I'm enjoying it!" And the waitress smiled and giggled in return as she bowed and muttered a word of thanks. Happily bidding them to have a nice stay, the waitress excused herself and she went away to serve the other customers.
Still smiling, Yako ate her share of a decent snack that, for once, didn't involve three tables filled with food. Mutsuki silently ate her strawberry shortcake, and stealthily gave a piece of strawberry to one of the cats adorably pawing at her boots.
Kanae, after observing the interior design of the café and glancing at the other customers with her critical eye, quietly leaned towards the table, nudged Yako's elbow and whispered.
"Home-wrecker at your six o'clock. Don't make it look obvious."
Yako quirked an eyebrow at her best friend's comment, and Kanae merely jerked her head to her left. Yako slowly followed Kanae's trail of sight—looking behind her in an almost inconspicuous manner with a slight frown.
The first thing she saw was a familiar back profile, those familiar tendrils of wispy blond locks that softly sat upon a slender pair of shoulders up to a thin waist.
Yako's lips fell to a thin line.
Aizawa Aya.
A sharp yell and a bellowing laugh echoed inside one of the rooms in the karaoke house, and a quite drunk Shinobu slurred and tried to sing at the top of his gruff and croaky voice.
"Eternally r'peatin' a cinema of d'spair—"
"For fuck's sake, Godai. Stop screeching already! Yer making my ears cry with blood!"
"Geeh—shaddup, ya punk. I'm shing'ing 'ere!"
"'P-punk', ya say? Why I oughtta—"
A shoe to the head was all it took to knock Shinobu off of the table he was 'singing' on, and the man immediately dropped out cold.
Yukinori, who was dressed in his usual yakuza get-up along with his favorite fur coat, hung his mouth open at a grumbling, furrow-browed Neuro, who calmly stood up and went over to the unconscious Shinobu, retrieved his just-thrown shoe and put it back on his left foot, and he silently returned to his seat on the leather couch and took a shot of the bourbon clutched in Yukinori's hand. When the platinum-haired male was about to protest, Neuro silenced him with a single yet soul-piercing glare.
Neuro placed the shot glass on Shinobu's crotch and stepped on it, satisfied upon hearing the distinctive crack.
Shinobu remained out cold.
Yukinori kept his mouth shut and raised his palms in defeat, backing away from Neuro slowly.
Neuro huffed, crossed his legs and arms as he smiled sadistically at the sight of Shinobu's now bruised and swollen forehead. Yet even so, he still felt on edge and jittery from the inside, and it was not because of the liquor, either—he wondered why. He muttered something under his breath, and Yukinori was sure he heard him mutter Yako's name.
In a half-hearted attempt to lighten up the mood, Yukinori laughed, "Ya worried 'bout yer pillbug?" And when another glare was sent to him, Yukinori merely shrugged nonchalantly and held his palms up once more—with no malicious intent about Yako. "That is what ya call 'er, righ'? Yer pillbug. Yer maggot. Yer kitten. Ya give her a lotta strange pet names, if ya ask me. It makes me wonder how she put up with all that," and he smirked at Neuro, to which the latter merely replied with a pair of eyes squinting suspiciously at him.
Neuro grunted. "I'm the only one allowed to call her that. No one else. And to answer your invasive line of thought—she is used to it. I've been calling her those names since grade school."
Yukinori smirked, "Yer really smitten with 'er, eh? What did ya see in 'er?"
"Getting nosy, eh. Well, I should ask you the same. What did you see in that boy-hoarder?"
"Kanae? Is that what ya call her? Haha! Well, for starters, she is pretty and has this charm—"
"And she uses that prettiness and charm to lure other men to her waiting claws."
"...I think you have her confused with a man-eating siren. Or a split-mouth woman. Or something."
Neuro shrugged, staring off in space with a little smile, "I'd take both. Her man-eating siren skills and her innate ability to demand attention through the means of asking anyone if she is pretty, then blow up if they say she's pretty because she thinks they're lying... Japan has strange tastes in legends."
"I think it's a nice way of putting color in our everyday lives, right? Haha!"
In turn, Neuro slowly looked at Yukinori with a blank smile and a slight tilt of the head, "Speaking of legends and colors, do you want the red paper or blue paper?"
Yukinori's eye twitched and backed off all the way to the edge of the couch, "D-dude, that's not funny. At all."
Yako silently observed the table that Aya occupied, her lips still drawn in a thin frown. Sipping on her milk tea, her eyebrow arched as she saw Aya trying to comfort herself through the means of a discreet self-hug, rubbing her right arm slowly as she did so.
From her seat, Yako could tell she was crying—her makeup could never conceal her puffy eyes and her reddened nose and the little rattles her shoulders make as she hunched and slowly rocked herself back and forth.
Near Aya's foot, a Bobtail looked and pawed at her, silently demanding attention. The cat was ignored.
Yako turned her attention back to her slice of carrot cake, and looked at Kanae and Mutsuki, who were looking equally as grim as she was.
"Should I approach her?"
Kanae shook her head, "She doesn't look like she's in the mood to talk, though. She—or you—might cause a scene."
"Not in front of the kitties, nee-chan."
Yako sighed, "Fine. If you two said so, then it will be so."
Neuro went to Shibuya station as he promised to Yako earlier after he left the karaoke club.
Standing in front of the Hachikou exit, he stood and waited for two minutes in the cold until Yako showed up, panting and exhausted from running.
"You didn't use the train?" Neuro asked, looking quite amused as he approached her heaving form casually with a lazy smile on his face.
Her knees bucked and Neuro deftly caught her fall, patting her head as he did so. She held up a hand as she tried to catch her breath, and when she did, the first thing she did was to sniff his coat.
"I see you poured your cologne all over your clothes."
He grunted, "Only because the cigarette stench from those two won't go away. And now my clothes stink like you."
Yako pouted and lightly punched his chest. "Haha. Funny. Now let's go home. I'm starving."
"But you told me earlier you just went to six tea houses and two restaurants—oh right. I forgot I'm talking to a pig right now."
As soon as Neuro got inside Yako's room, he immediately rummaged through her closet, took out his sweater and sweatpants, throwing them on the edge of the bed, and went straight to the bathroom, shedding his clothes on the floor along the way. It was only him and Yako in the house, anyway. No need for pretenses.
When a pajama-clad Yako saw the mess of strewn clothes a few minutes after Neuro entered the bathroom, she merely sighed and picked up the discarded clothing and threw them to the hamper. She stared at the locked door—debating whether to knock on it or not, she simply went to her room and left the door open. She sat on the bed, avoiding Neuro's clothes, and faced the door anxiously, her back hunched, her hands wound together on her knees that were touching firmly, her toes twiddling restlessly, pulling on the little fuzz-like threads on the carpet, and gooseflesh was forming on her skin. I need to pee.
Ten minutes passed, and the sound of running water stopped, and a freshly-showered, still dripping wet and slightly flushed Neuro emerged from the now steam-filled bathroom, draped in only a white towel covering his privates.
"Finally," and Yako rushed to the bathroom—her head bowed throughout—and clicked the door shut, leaving behind a shrugging Neuro.
Unbeknownst to him, a blushing Yako was covering her face as she urinated in the bowl.
Those collarbones will be the death of me someday...!
When Yako returned to her room, she saw Neuro draped over the bed, his left arm hanging limply on the edge of the mattress, seemingly staring at a blank space on the wall.
She giggled. "I'm guessing you drank a lot tonight?"
Neuro weakly shook his head and lazily waved his hand. His sights remained on the wall as he spoke, "I just drank a shot of bourbon. That's it. I'm not risking another bomb of stench on my soiled clothes."
She hummed, seemingly satisfied with that explanation. Besides, I didn't smell alcohol on his clothes and breath earlier when we met at the station, either.
Neuro averted his gaze from the wall, and stared at a silently humming Yako instead, who was now removing her accessories and placing them on the bedside table.
"How about you?" he asked. "You look happy."
In return, Yako smiled and plopped her weary self on the inviting softness of the bed, sitting beside him as she did so. "We saw Aizawa in the cat café today. And she was crying."
An eyebrow arched as a frown marred Neuro's features, and he repositioned himself on his back, his ribcage rising and falling with each breath as he now looked at Yako, "And I assume you didn't do anything stupid?"
"Of course I didn't." The poker face that Yako suddenly sported made Neuro think that she was saying otherwise.
A lazy smile graced his lips, and he reached out for her hand, her engagement ring bumping against his thumb. "Hm... I can sense you are lying to me, Yako."
She clamped her lips, and looked to the left, and when she felt the comforting hand still laid upon hers, she quirked a stifled smile, "Kind of...?"
"Well then, spill it. I'm waiting, you fly," he blinked, his lips curled in that familiar haughty smirk as gleaming green eyes looked at warm brown ones.
She tried to put up a brave front, she really did, but the events from earlier were too dramatic to push away, and Yako told him what she thought he needed to know. "Kanae-chan blew up at her on our way out, you see, even if she told me not to cause a scene. She talked—loudly, mind you—about how much of a home-wrecker Aizawa is, and it took a prick from Mutsuki-tan's safety pin for Kanae-chan to stop."
As though asking a question with his curious stare alone, she elaborated. "Mutsuki-tan pricked Kanae-chan's elbow."
And Neuro blinked, then laughed, "I knew that shrimp had thorns."
Yako wholeheartedly agreed. "Aizawa said little, saying she was being inconsiderate about you. Kanae-chan looked miffed and—we took a silent leave after that ruckus. I said nothing to her the whole time, if you're wondering. To Aizawa, I mean. If I did, I would never stop talking, would I? And the whole café would be in chaos if I started lashing out."
"Good thing you know."
"Agreeing so quickly..."
"Heh."
Her phone suddenly rang from the bedside table, and Neuro, who was nearer to the phone, answered it.
"Haruka-san. Good evening! ...Oh, we're fine, we're fine. Yako is with me—all right... Yes, yes. I am protecting her, ma'am." Neuro smiled and looked at Yako, nodding, "Your mother wants you."
Her hand reached out to her phone and she talked to her mother. Saying words of reassurance that they were fine, Haruka told Yako of the instructions to keep the house safe from any intruders or possible accidents, and to spare some of the food from the fridge—to which Yako awkwardly laughed.
As Yako listened on to her mother, Neuro was silently watching her with a calm gaze and a barely-there smile, his hand never leaving hers as she now talked.
He listened to her talk, and he slowly closed his eyes as he felt her hand smoothing out his hair, quietly enjoying the warmth her palm brought to his person.
A quaint building draped in luxurious interiors lavished the restaurant near Shibuya, and a finely-dressed Yako was seated on one of the plush chairs provided near the entrance.
After being called by the waiter to address her to her seat, Yako thanked the young man and sat, silently observing the cozy restaurant as she did so.
Neuro was not with her today, as he and her had a bit of a fight earlier just before she left her house.
It had been two days since Yako saw Aya in the cat café—and the reason why Yako and Neuro fought was partly because of something that she left out of her story that day.
Yako had talked to Aya for a fleeting chance, just before they left Neko JaLaLa, as opposed to what she said to Neuro that they didn't talk.
And right now, she felt guilty for lying to him.
I should apologize, was what she thought, as she bit her lips anxiously. She had never been used to fighting with Neuro—even if it was over a petty thing.
But today, he was rather, different, should she say.
She remembered what he looked like before she slammed the door and left with a heavy heart.
He doesn't want me to see her in fear that she will harm me.
For the sake of an apology of sorts, she texted him, apologizing and promising to tell him everything when she returned home, and she turned on her hair clips and put on her choker.
Aya entered the restaurant looking as elegant as she had always been, and upon spotting Yako in a corner, her mood shifted to a happy one, and she smiled over to a worried-looking Yako as she greeted her.
"Hello, Katsuragi-chan, may I sit?"
Yako wiped the tear she didn't know she shed, and smiled as she motioned her to seat, "Please, do."
An awkward silence fell upon them, and it was only broken when a waiter approached them and gave them their menu.
They ordered their food—with Aya (and the waiter) trying not to look surprised at Yako who was ordering every food the menu had.
The waiter bowed and left, leaving Yako and Aya in a tense silence once more. Deciding that they would go nowhere with keeping their mouths shut the whole time, Aya and Yako spoke—in unison.
Silence shortly reigned.
"Uh, please, Aizawa-san, you first."
"Um, no. Please, you first."
Yako bit her lip and looked at the centerpiece of the table—a nice bowl of plastic fruits. "Well, if you insist. Um, why were you crying the other day? That is, if I'm not being intrusive and all and—"
Aya laughed, her dainty hand covering her smiling lips as she looked at the stunned face Yako had. "Oh, you are quite an amusing thing, Katsuragi-chan! No wonder he chose you! And no, you're not being intrusive."
Yako observed Aya's smile, and surely, there were no signs of her smile reaching her ears. The tell-tale sign of crow's feet didn't crinkle her eyelids, either.
At the back of Yako's mind, she thought Aya was mocking her.
Well, two can play that game.
"Well then, let me tell you a secret," and Aya looked from left to right, as though anyone might overhear the story she was about to tell. She leaned her elbows on the table, her fingers nestling her chin, and it looked to Yako as though Aya was forcing a smile once more. "I was a bit upset that time, you see. My mother—she did a bad thing."
"May I ask what's it about?" Yako asked, pretending to be interested in her seemingly long-winding tale, when in reality, Yako was already mentally throwing the table at Aya's face. You're the reason why Neuro and I are fighting!
"You are quite aware of where Nougami-san was raised, right?" and Aya nodded when Yako nodded. "Germany. That's where we came from. I was raised Düsseldorf, while he in Berlin. Or so my parents said where he was born. At six years old, Nougami-san and I were supposed to meet formally for the first time. His parents and mine have always been adamant that our families should join to gain financially and—at that time, I had no power to disobey them. I mean, they're my parents. I'm supposed to obey—but Nougami-san, I never met him there. He went away to a far away place, my mother said—two weeks before our families were supposed to meet. From what I've heard, his parents allowed him to go—provided that he will return one day to meet his bride."
Yako sat still in her seat as she held her breath, taking in every word she was hearing. She held her opinions to herself—yet her mind now swam with questions.
Aya continued on, and over time, her gestures became more animated, her expressions livelier and freer, her eyes brighter than Yako had ever seen—and by now, Aya was unraveling her true soul.
Fifteen minutes passed, and their meals arrived. As Aya's talking came to a momentary halt when the waiters placed their food on the table, Yako then complimented the chef in advance for making such a bountiful meal—for the eyes of a normal person, the food on Yako's enormous plate was a feast for five people, at least; but for Yako, it was not enough.
"So, you were saying that this journey of yours," Yako paused and slurped on her plate of spaghettini, wiping her mouth as she discreetly burped, "I'm guessing you want to convince Neuro to go with you, is that it?"
Aya's brown eyes widened just a tad, and her lips thinned, and if Yako looked at her closer, she would see Aya's shoulders tensing beneath her long-sleeved dress. From her critical eye, Yako could see Aya gulping.
Yako mentally smirked. Jackpot.
Neuro had been calling Yako the entire time since she left without a word of apology earlier―apology! He never knew their fight would come to this. Never had he become so upset with her decision until now. Pacing anxiously to and fro, he pondered what events led to this disaster.
He had always allowed her to go with her friends with his consent, yes, but with Aizawa Aya―that was another story. He'd have no control over what would happen to his little maggot if that person were to harm her when he was not around and―
"Damn it...!" and Neuro threw his phone to her bed angrily, cursing even more when the phone bounced back and landed on the carpeted floor. He picked it up, and slammed it on her dresser instead. His teeth had been gnashing the whole time, fists clenched and eyebrows tightly drawn and eyes looking ready to kill any moment.
He glared at his phone once more, as if it were the little thing's fault why he was so angry at everything at this moment. Growling, he dialed her number again, huffing when the operator went to voicemail.
"Fucking technology. Not doing its stupid task."
And he paced the room once more, growing more and more anxious at each passing second―and at the back of his mind, he begrudgingly admitted he was worried―he was close to yelling, chucking everything his eyes met to the wall. The only thing that kept him from unleashing his anger on the inanimate things was that this house was her parents' house―and he respected them, no matter what.
He restlessly ran a hand through his mussed up hair―he needed to think, think, think!
Yako instructed me not to go where she is. Not to go! What kind of order is that! Moreover, why am I obeying? I'm her Master, not the other way around!
"She should be here with me where it's safe."
Finally deciding on a newfound resolve to follow Yako, he checked his phone and looked up at where she was, and he heaved a sigh of relief. "It's near from here," and his lips curled to a tired yet relieved smile, his shoulders sagging and his facial features relaxing, "following her should be easy enough."
He hurried in dressing up to "fetch his helpless maggot from the clutches of the temptress of a siren"―as he dubbed in his mind, and Neuro quickly pocketed his phone, the keys of the house and his wallet. He decided that he wouldn't need his Swiss knives for today, as he was in too much of a hurry to secure them in his person, so he left them in his bag, in her room.
Rapidly stomping down the stairs and feeling the blood pumping adrenaline rush in his cold ears as he put on his shoes, Neuro failed to realize the familiar, blaring sound of his phone as he hurriedly opened the front door.
A feeling of sudden warmth and numbness pooled at his stomach, and his face went cold as he gulped.
There, standing by the door, was an eerily smiling Jody Tubulik, looking dirtier and creepier than he had ever been―
―and there, in his tan and callous hand, was a knife, lunged into Neuro's stomach.
"Oh, why hello. If it isn't Nougami-san? Say, my favorite student—did you miss me?"
Aya knew, at some point, that Yako would realize her real intentions of pursuing Neuro. The smaller female wasn't dumb―that much she knew.
So when Yako brought up the subject altogether, Aya knew what she herself had to say.
"Yes. I want him to go with me." Her words were simple enough to flow out of her lips, but her heart and mind screamed for her not to do it. He will be angered if he knew about this.
Yako held a deep breath, and seemed to look calm enough from Aya's perspective; but little did she know that a fragment of Yako's mind seemed to tear out and cry as well. She looked away from Aya.
"You do know that I will fight for him, right?" and a pained pair of warm brown eyes seemed to stare at Aya's soul. Yako had her jaw clenched, and she fought back a tear. Why does it have to be him that you will take from me!
Aya nodded, and her mouth seemed to form a word left unsaid, but instead, she took out a crumpled paper from her purse, and when she laid it on the table to flatten it, Yako realized that it was, in fact, a picture, slightly faded by time. The white fold lines and folded edges made the picture seemed older than it should really be. She handed it to Yako with a melancholic smile.
"This is him when he was small. The date written on the back is kind of faded, sorry―it says March 10, 1998. He was three years old back then. Aomi-chan gave it to me, you see. He said that Nougami-san will be my prince one day. And... Well, it didn't happen as I had hoped, seeing as he made it clear that he wants you to be his wife." She mustered a pained laugh, fighting back a tear about to fall from her watery eyes, "I―want you to have it, Katsuragi-chan. As a piece of his past that you should know."
Yako quietly took it in her small hands, looking and inspecting the picture as though it were a special treasure. Fingertips grazed against the outlines of a blond-and-black locked little boy smiling at the camera, his eyes well-concealed by the crow's feet that graced his features. A tooth was missing as he smiled. He wore a white shirt and a pair of dark blue shorts. He had a pair of healthy legs, he had a scrape on his right knee, and he had tiny feet, which were donned by black little sneakers. Behind him was a scenery of a green meadow beneath a blue sky, and on the far left of the picture was a part of a building―or a mansion, it seemed.
And Yako's mouth formed into a little smile as she looked at the three-year-old Neuro. "He's so tiny..." and just like that, her anger almost faded away. Just the mere sight of a little Neuro made Yako's heart fill with joy, for a reason she did not know.
Aya nodded solemnly, brown eyes smiling at Yako, "I consider it my most precious gift―and I want you to take care of it. I know you will." As she looked at Yako's apparent awe and face full of smiles, Aya's sights set on the sparkling ring that adorned Yako's finger.
"That is a nice ring. You two chose it?"
Yako's attention then turned to her ring, and as though on a fixed form of habit, her fingertips smoothed gently over the expensive stones and smiled. "He made it for me. He made one for himself too, saying it will be our wedding rings once we planned our future thoroughly enough," and she looked at Aya with a smile, and she frowned when the long-haired woman looked at her engagement ring sadly.
A choked sob made its way through Aya's broken voice.
"I will have to give him up someday, I see."
And the two women sat in silence, each pondering about the man who held their hearts.
It was already nearing six-thirty in the evening when Aya and Yako parted ways after they made their truce, with heavy feelings in their hearts. Aya seemed at peace when they parted, and Yako didn't know if that was a good thing or not.
Heaving a sigh as she made her way back home, she saw a man by the streets that she and Neuro usually pass by, he was crouching by himself as passersby ignored him.
With wisps of greasy, shoulder-length hair and a concealed face dirtied by soot and grime, the man hugged himself and groaned―probably in hunger, Yako mused. Donned in a black jacket and tattered slacks, the man coughed out blood. Yako grimaced and briskly walked away, slightly looking at the other side of the streets as to avoid the sight of blood pooling at the palm of the man's hand.
It was just a fleeting glance as she walked by.
After crossing the streets, the first thing that Yako did was to take out her phone from her purse―and saw that she had a dozen of missed calls, along with five texts, all from Neuro, telling her to go home and talk things over with him.
Yako bit her lip, and as though she were talking to him, she smiled and nodded. "Yes, yes. We'll talk. I'm coming home."
She walked towards the familiar path to her house, and noted that something was a bit off.
The usual gray walls that surrounded the perimeter of her house were tinted with dashes of red, and on the pavement were questionable drops of red.
Her mind drove with possible solutions, a lot of maybes and what-ifs as she rushed to open the―
"―already open?"
Yako held back a gasp as she pushed open the front door smeared with blood.
There, on the floor, was a putrid and sickening pool of red.
Trying to keep her calm, she took out a dagger concealed beneath her dress―taught to her by Mutsuki―and silently muttered Neuro's name. Cold sweat broke from her forehead as she followed the trail of stench and the alarming drops of red.
The trail led her upstairs, where the fetid smell was the strongest―
―in her room.
Without a second thought, she kicked her bedroom door open, dagger ready to launch at a possible intruder and―
She dropped the dagger the moment her eyes fell on her now scarlet bed―and a figure laid almost dead to the world, a gash all too deep and seeing on his crippled stomach.
"Neuro!"
A/N: Let the drama begin. *takes virtual cookies and goes into hiding*
Neko JaLaLa is an actual cat café in Akihabara, for those of you who don't know it—and no, I have never been into one of those cafés. What I wouldn't give to go there. T^T Also, 'Schlampe. Bitte. Geh und stirb' literally means 'Bitch. Please. Go and die.' And yes we all know Neuro is a demon, I just want him to have a bit of foreign blood in this fic because, well, he is a human in this one. Why Germany, you ask? Fufu~ that's a secret for now. :3
The song Godai tried to sing (or slur, actually) was the first part of Nightmare's "Dirty", which we all know is MTNN's opening theme.
For those who don't know what the legend of red paper and blue paper is (or Aka Manto in native Japanese), I suggest you turn to the power of the internet and search for it. It's one of the stories in Japan that creeped me out when I was in fifth grade. D:
Now go review, readers~ *munches on a cookie*