"He doesn't return my calls, he doesn't respond to my texts, and the one time he picks up he says he's "busy" and hangs up on me. Frankly that guy is starting to piss me off and the next time I see that jackass I'm going to kick his fucking ass!" I ranted finishing in large huffs at the end as my rage rolled off of me in waves. Somewhere inside me I thought that all this anger wouldn't be good for her to be around. Although, when I heard her chuckle lightly at my rant I knew it was okay.
"Are there any good qualities? Or is that all of them?" she asked, coughing lightly as she lay against the pile of pillows.
"Mmm~ I'm sorry. When you asked me why I was upset, I just kinda sorta started ranting," I said looking down at my clenched hands guiltily.
"It's okay Amai; you really like this boy, so I understand why you're so upset." My mother, the only person who could see through me.
"Ah, no. I like him, but I don't like him. Ya know?" I said, trying to dissuade her from whatever was running through her mind. She just smiled at me, both knowing and not knowing what I meant. I couldn't blame her though, even I confused myself sometimes.
"So do you have a picture of this boy? Or should I use my imagination?" she asked. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders before remembering that Sora had mentioned to me that he had read an article on him.
"Be right back," I told her getting up from the chair by her bed and running down the hall to Sora and my room, digging through stacks of paper and magazines until I found several issues of Tokyo Warrior. Not wanting to keep Mom waiting, I brought all seven issues I had found back to her room and seated myself beside as I looked through the indexes. I didn't involve Mom in my search because with a name like "Heiwajima Shizuo" tagged with the epithet "Strongest Man in Ikebukuro", it was best that I let her see it for herself. 'Sheesh, I was right when I said it was a fluff piece,' I thought, folding the magazine down the center and showing it to Mom. Well, what little there was on the page anyway. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that it was like those pieces people see on cryptids: a bad title, an even worse caption, a messed up explanation and a terrible picture that isn't all there.
"Umm, is this supposed to be him?" she asked confused, pointing to the picture of the black and white man with the mop of obscured blond hair throwing what I assumed was a…vending machine?
"Sort of," I said, albeit a little unsure myself. Honestly I could draw better than the photographed picture…although from the position of it, it looked like Shizuo was throwing the vending machine at the photographer. "But, umm, he's about five or six inches taller than me-I reach his shoulders- and he's got blond hair, like in the picture," I tried to explain making various gestures that I was pretty sure were just confusing her more. "He's a tough guy, but he's pretty soft inside," I said resigning myself to explain what I at least thought of him.
"Hmm…I'll take your word for it, but I bet the photographer didn't think so," she said chuckling a bit maliciously at the photograph, "If he takes pictures like these, he must not have a very developed career," she chuckled, laughing at her own pun. Yeah, and people thought we inherited our bad personalities from our father. "So you were saying about Heiwajima-kun not calling you back? Why won't he?" she asked setting aside the magazine.
"'cause he's a jackass that won't listen to a word I say," I muttered glaring at the wall, "and even though I've told him a hundred times that Hikaru's female, he won't call back. Frankly I feel like he's about to do something crazy, but then again, I don't know him that well."
"Do you want me to try calling him? I'm told I can be very persuasive," she said smiling innocently. Persuasive? More like guilt-tripping.
"No, I'll try calling one more time before making the ultimate decision."
"You mean final decision."
"Essentially, but how I said it was cooler," I argued, tapping in Shizuo's number and setting it so Mom could listen in on whatever smidgen of conversation there would be. On the forth ring Shizuo graced me with his rough voice for the first time in twenty-four hours.
"Yeah?" One word? What, I wasn't worthy of "Amai, I'm busy'?
"What no 'you've reached the voice mail of blonde jackass. Leave a message after the fucking beep?'" I asked irritated, momentarily forgetting who I was in the presence of before I heard her disciplinary voice.
"Amai! Use polite language when you're speaking to someone," she rasped heavily, clearly upset by my choice of words.
"Amai? Who's that you're with?" he asked.
"That's my Mom, her name is Tachibana Yasuko-"
"Feel free to call me Yasuko-san," Mom added cheerfully, losing all traces of her previous attitude instantly.
"…Heiwajima Shizuo," he said hesitantly. "Is there something wrong with the connection? It sounds a little…" he said trailing off, unsure of himself.
"Don't mind my voice; it's been like this for the longest time. Amai, why don't you go talk to your friend downstairs, I'm going to take a nap before lunch, alright?" she suggested, scooting away from the pile of pillows she was resting against to lay her head down.
"Yeah, I'll be back up in a few hours. Sleep well, Mom," I told her, closing the door softly before retreating downstairs to hang out in the kitchen.
"So that was your mom," he said while I walked down the stairs.
"Yup. I was just talking to her about you," I told him, sitting down on a stool.
"Is she…does she have…" he didn't seem to get his words out, understandable since I could get the gist of what he was trying to say.
"She's got lung cancer. Smoking also kinda wrecked her throat, too," I told him, looking blandly out the window.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah, well they're not called cancer sticks for nothing, huh?" I said, maybe a little too snidely, but maybe now he understood why I disliked cigarettes so much. "So what's up? How come you won't call me back?" I asked, hoping to distract from the previous conversation.
"I told you, I'm busy," he said stubbornly.
"Shizuo, I've called you thirty-seven times. I know because my brothers keep making fun of me for it. Also, by this point I'm sick of being the super clingy girl-friend we both know I'm not. So put up or shut up. Why haven't you been answering your cell? I think it's safe to assume that as a body guard, your only job critique is to beat people up and guard a body. Not exactly time consuming from what I've seen."
He didn't speak after that, so I assumed that I'd found him out, at least half-way anyway. When he finally did speak, it was…surprising to say the least.
"Don't you have more important things to do than call someone like me?" Surprising indeed since I didn't expect him to say that in the least.
"The Hell's that supposed to mean?" I asked him, both irritated at his cryptic answer, as well as confused.
"Exactly what I mean, I heard your friend on the phone, why don't you hang out with her? Why are you wasting time with someone you'll see next week?" he asked.
I was dumbfounded. Was he actually suggesting to not speak to him for the rest of the week? Son of a bitch, he's either a moron or he's jealous.
"Shizuo, you-"
"I gotta go, I'm holding Tom-san up," he said before hanging up on me, leaving me alone in the kitchen with a tone dial ringing in my ear. I closed the phone shut, and stood still in the middle of the kitchen, staring at nothing in particular, my face showing a blank slate of nothing as a hot pit of fire and lava stewed inside me and broiled over the rims, showing on my face the emotions of a pissed off person with severe attitude problems.
"Shizuo you fucking son of a BIIIIIIITCCHHHHHH!"
DRRR!
"Ow, ow, ow~"
"The hell you doing to my car, Amai?"
"I think it's pretty obvious I was trying to use it," I replied struggling under him as he locked my arms behind my back and pushed my face into the gravel.
"More like steal it and take it into town. Who gave you the right to steal my car, stupid?" my younger brother lisped taking obvious pleasure in his interrogation. "I'm gonna call a family meeting, and then you can properly explain to everyone what you're up to, nee-chan."
"Aww~ Come on! I already told Mom what's happening, and she encourages my idea!" I explained, using my body to swiftly knock him on his side against the gravel and pin him there while he glared up at me furiously. "Just drive me into town and we can forget the whole thing, huh?" He seemed to think this over as he glared up at me, his own face now pressed into the dirt.
"DAD! DAD! Amai's trying to escape and go back to the city!" he shouted towards the barn where a tall, burly man appeared in the large entrance at the call of summons. My father carried a large pitchfork, probably from tossing hay into the loft above, but the look itself was terrifying and ominous.
"Now why would my only daughter take off a week early without any explanation or goodbyes to her dear old father and brothers?" he asked me as he made his way to where I was currently putting Carney in a headlock for ratting me out.
"It wasn't voluntary, it was impulse. My friend's being a jealous bitch and I need to kick some sense into him," I tried to explain.
"And to think of leaving without saying good bye to your poor sick mum. For shame lassie."
"Mom encouraged me! It was her idea!"
"She encouraged you to leave without telling anyone?" he asked, slightly skeptical but otherwise believing this is something she would say.
"She said she'd cover for me."
"Granted that is something she would say, what friend is this that deserves to be punished for their crimes?"
"Not friend. Lover boy," Carney choked out before kicking me off of him and scrambling to stand by our father's side.
"A buachaill? Is this a real boyfriend or a boy who's only a friend?" he asked, seeking clarification.
"Daaad~! I don't want to get into my relationships now," I whined, standing up from the ground.
"You're breaking my heart, Margaret. When am I going to get grandkids?"
"What about Daichi and the unborn child Patrick has?" I asked him, paling slightly at the fact my father was getting involved in my love life like everyone else.
"I mean from you," he said stubbornly, crossing his arms while Carney held the pitchfork like the little devil he is.
"Ugh, you're worse than Mom is, but not half as bad as Taka-chan," I replied disbelieving that this is the reality I live in.
"Fair question since you're turning twenty-four next month and currently have a non-existent love life," Kazuhiro stated, walking towards us while simultaneously playing with his phone.
"Then why don't you gang up on Kichiro?" I asked, pissed that they over-looked the fact that my older brother was a play boy.
"Fair enough, let's go inside then and have a meeting/trial/intervention," Kazuhiro suggested, looking at me with a small smirk on his face.
I scowled, hating that my escape plan had turned into a trial to determine my future and imprisonment.
DRRR!
My head hurt. Why? Because I just got off the train from a thirteen hour trip back down to Ikebukuro because a certain blonde jackass decided to play the part of the wounded bird. Not to mention the fact that I had to convince my two older brothers to let me go back early without them even though I'm the one that dragged them there in the first place-that was an argument that would not end-added to the fact that I had to single-handedly convince my dad that letting me come back to Ikebukuro would somehow help my love-life. Considering my dad put me in a head lock while I was telling him, the trial ended in my favor, so long as the next time I came back home I bring a boy that's not just my friend. I had a feeling it would be a very long time until I next saw my younger brothers and parents. But enough of the past, in the present I was currently using my lock picking kit to, well, pick a lock, which was actually pretty difficult to do since it was dark outside and I was holding a penlight between my teeth that jittered every time I tried to grind my teeth when I thought about how I was going to kill Shizuo.
'The first part I should think about is how I should wake that bastard up before I start cursing him out. Maybe I should do something with water…although I don't want it to look like a middle school prank. Should I dump water over him?...No, that would be too messy.' I thought as the door unlocked and I turned the knob. Returning my tools to their proper place I looked around the inside of his apartment. Like I had seen before, it was sparsely furnished. A small kitchen area, a TV against the opposite wall with a coffee table set in front of it and a few other miscellaneous items spread around the small apartment.
'Well, I have a feather in my backpack-thank you Aki. Maybe I'll luck out and find whipped cream in his fridge.' I thought, going over to the fridge and opening it quietly, looking inside. I was lucky, inside, along with several cups of pudding, was a can of whipped cream. 'Shizuo, you're making this too easy,' I thought, grabbing the can of whipped cream…as well as a cup of pudding. Let's face it; even if it was five in the morning, I was hungry. Setting my backpack against the wall beside the bedroom door, I dug through it for the long feather and opened the door slowly 'les the sleeper inside wake up and spoil my revenge plan, well the first part anyway. This was going to be a fun week.
Pen light clenched between my teeth, and the feather and cell phone in my hands, the whipped cream can in my back pocket, I tip-toed my way to his bedside and snapped a picture of his sleeping face, the 'before' picture as it were. "Shizuo, we are going to have some fun together," I whispered to him, setting down the feather and phone beside me and shaking up can. Laughing maliciously to myself I sprayed the whipped cream on his face, giving him a whipped cream beard. Holding my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing and waking him up, I picked up my phone off the floor and took a picture of his oblivious face. When the whipped cream started to melt a bit, I felt around for the feather on the floor but my hand instead brushed against something that was most definitely not the feather.
Confused, but also curious, I took the light out of my mouth and looked to where I had felt the flat surface that felt like a box. When I saw that it was indeed a box I grinned to myself, momentarily forgetting the search for the feather. After sliding the box out from under the bed, I sat down, my back resting against the side of his bed as I opened the flaps of the small brown box. At first I was expecting the box of porn magazines he had hidden, but when I looked inside and found various manila folders and papers, I got confused. These things looked like…hospital records? I picked up one of the many manila folders and looked inside, seeing a shiny piece of black paper…was it paper? I took it out of the manila folder and looked at it until I figured out what it was.
Placing the pen light under the paper, I soon figured out that it was an x-ray of a child's broken leg. Wondering if all the manila folders were the same I took them all out of the ox and looked through each one. They all spanned different ages, the earliest being about eight years old and the latest about twelve or thirteen. The range at which their bones were broken, or at the very least sprained, went from arms and legs to several other places within the torso of the body. How was this humanly possible?
"Shizuo, you are one messed up freak of nature aren't you?" I said to myself as I looked back in the box at the number of medical records and doctor's notes. Behind me I heard a rustling of bed sheets and a low moan as the blond giant slowly woke up and, through no fault of my own, rubbed his face, effectively smearing the whipped cream around the open regions of his face I had not covered.
"What the-is this?" he said groggily, looking at his whipped cream covered hand before tentatively licking it, his expression, what I could see of it anyway, looked confused. I contemplated three things. One, stay perfectly still and wait until he got up and went to the bathroom so I could make my escape. Two, hide under the bed and wait until he was gone. Or three, be obnoxious and let him know I was there. While my head, gut and every other part of my body voted for options one and two, my personality overruled them all and voted option three.
"Good morning sunshine! Beautiful day for a whipped cream beard ain't it?!" I shouted, effectively alerting him to my presence and making him jump in shock into a seated position as he looked down, dazed and confused, at me.
"Amai? What are you doing here? Why am I covered in whipped cream...? What the hell's your problem?!" he shouted at me obviously upset…from what I could see beyond the whipped cream.
"That's what I want to know! The last one, not the first two," I added, pointing a finger at him with a frustrated look on my face.
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, swiping a tissue from a box on the nightstand and cleaning his hand off as well as his face.
"You know: the fact that I called you and you acted like a jealous bitch before hanging up on me. I had to cut my vacation short you ass! Do you have any idea how hard it is on the human body to stay this pissed and travel for thirteen hours? I got called a bitch twice just because I was saving it all for you!" I ranted, practically feeling the bitterness on the tip of my tongue. "What exactly is your problem?" I asked him, turning the question back on him.
"…You came back for a petty reason like that?' he asked, further igniting the fury in my body.
"You wanna talk about petty, let's look at how you reacted to a huge misunderstanding," I muttered before taking on a wildly creepy expression and smiling up at him. "Oh, we are going to have a fun week together Heiwajima-kun, a fun week indeed," I said monotonously, standing up from the floor and practically crawling over him as I leaned over the bed and placed my hands on either side of his body as I got close to him and whispered threateningly, "I'll be like the stalker ex-girlfriend you've never had. I'll be the creepy feeling you get when you feel like you're being watched. And when you go home and climb into bed, I'll be person next to you whispering bad things in your ear just so you can dream nightmares."
"…Amai…that's creepy," he said, his nose just barely brushing mine when he responded to my threat.
"Tell that to my mom, she's the one that made me memorize it before I left," I told him, snapping out of the creepy tone and leaning away to rock back on my heels. "But the gist of it is that you're basically stuck with me for the next week."
"Why am I stuck with you?" he asked a little annoyed.
"You know that phase 'you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here'? Well it's kinda like that for me, except I can't go back to Hokkaido for my own sanity and ultimatum, and I can't go back to live with Taka-chan until next week," I told him, sitting down beside him on his bed.
"Why not?"
"Well, when I called him a few hours ago on the train, it sounded like he was either fighting a large animal or having sex. Actually, with the partner he's chosen, it could be either one," I told him, "and frankly I'm too happy for him to disturb his two weeks of bliss."
"Why do you have to stay here?"
"But I thought since you're my only other friend here it'd be okay. If…if you don't want me to stay, I guess I could try somewhere else," I said, pulling my weepy, chibi eye thing on him.
"It-it's fine, just stay here," he consented looking slightly uncomfortable.
"Yay! I get to stay with Shizuo!" I exclaimed, clapping my hands together in obvious delight.
"You're not drunk, are you?' he asked suddenly, confusing me.
"Nope! Just really happy I won't have to slum it out," I explained ignoring my confusion. Without warning I climbed onto his bed and straddled his waist while wrapping my arms around him and hugged him. While this in itself seemed a bit out of character for me to do, I simply wanted to show him my gratitude. Unbeknownst to me, he wanted to show me something, too. I won't say it was a comfortable feeling, but I will say it was unexpected. And while I wanted to ask him whether it was me that made his…'friend' stand up or the simple fact that a girl was sitting on his lap, seeing his face erased these thoughts from my mind and a single sentence filled their place.
"Why Shizuo-kun~ I didn't know I had that kind of effect on you~" I said, finally nailing that seductive voice I had tried to force weeks back. Maybe it only worked if it wasn't forced…or if it wasn't on perverts.
"Sh-shut up! Just get out of here already!" he shouted pointing me towards the bedroom door while squirming under me with red ears and a shy/pissed expression.
"Fine, fine. I'll just take this box of goodies with me and leave you to handle your problem. Extra emphasis on hand," I said, muttering the last part to myself happily as I awkwardly climbed off his lap and picked up the brown box. "Oh, and before I forget," I said absentmindedly, juggling the box in one hand while using the other to grab my cell phone, flip it open, and scroll through the pictures there until I found the most recent one of my friend. "This is Hikaru, the person you were jealous of. The girl with the ultra fluffy hair and glasses, and, well, boobs. I'll leave you to wallow in your embarrassment now," I said, flipping the phone closed and walking purposefully to the door. After I closed the door I set the box beside me on the floor and sat down at the coffee table, using the minimal light from the rising sun to look at the rest of the x-rays. Behind me I heard a shower going in the bathroom and joked to myself that he was probably taking a cold shower. After a while I felt my eyes grow tried, and before I knew it I had lost consciousness.
DRRR!
Shizuo's POV
'Why did she do that? Why did that have to happen? Shit! Why does she have to make everything awkward?!' I thought after working out my 'problem'. 'Why can't she just stay with this 'Taka-chan', or whatever his name is?' Turning the water off, I stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, drying myself off and wrapping it around my waist before taking another one and drying my hair. Leaving it wrapped around my shoulders I stepped out of the bathroom and towards my closet, opening it and seeing the white shirts and black pants from my brother inside. 'Then she jokes about it like it's nothing. Why didn't she feel awkward? She was sitting right there!' I stripped myself of the towel around my waist and slipping on underwear from my dresser drawer. 'I know she felt it, I saw her face,' I thought distractedly, taking out a pair of black slacks and putting it on. "Did she do it on purpose or was it by accident?" I asked myself aloud, taking the towel from around my neck and replacing it with a white, button-up shirt. I looked towards the door and debated to myself whether or not I should ask her, and whether she would evade the question like she did all those other times before or use it to mess with me.
"Amai, I want to ask you something," I said, calling to her from beyond the door. I didn't get a reply, snappy or otherwise. I went to the door and opened it, seeing her sitting in front of the coffee table, the box full of medical records in front of her. "Amai?" I said walking over to her. She didn't respond, instead choosing to ignore me, and frankly piss me off. "Hey, Amai! Don't ignore me!" I said angrily, reaching down to shake her shoulder, only to have her fall backwards onto the floor, sound asleep and softly snoring. I was shocked, but after the night she's had it wasn't surprising. Sighing to myself I bent down next to her and sat her up, her head lolling forward before moving up slightly. Beneath her red bangs I saw her eyes open a bit and look up at me tiredly.
"What happen to stalking me this week?" I asked her in all serious, hooking my arm under her legs and wrapping my other one behind her back, effortlessly picking her up as I stood.
"I'll do it another day…when I'm not…all tired…or…whatev-" she said trailed off, falling asleep in my arms as I walked back to my bedroom and laid her down on the bed, covering her body with the blanket as she buried her face into my pillow.
"Yeah, sure. I'll see you after work," I told her, picking my bowtie up off of the nightstand and wrapping it around my neck before clipping it together.
"Thanks for letting me stay here," she muttered, whether in her sleep or not I wasn't sure since it was so quiet I was surprised I heard it at all.
"Yeah," I said, whether she heard it or not I wasn't sure, I but left soon after, closing my apartment door on the sleeping girl inside.
