Summary: Yoh gets more than he bargained for when Anna scores some free prizes in the mail…
Written: Into the morning of 9/12/07.
Rating: T for coarse language, use of tobacco and romantic themes.
Notes: It's funny how writer's block can suddenly ease up and let you write an entire story in just a few hours…That's how this piece came into existence. I hope you like it. It might be awhile before inspiration strikes me again…
Silver-Screen Sweetness
Kiss #16
The fingers that danced upon the alabaster envelope's edges were as elegantly deft and businesslike as the blade that skimmed upon its surface. With a barely audible rip, it gutted the top of the envelope, and a girlish scream resonated in the room.
"Ahhhh! Yoh!"
He shifted his inseparable headphones back and looked up. "Huh?"
"I can't believe it!" she gushed, waving the envelope up and down between two slender fingertips. "We won!"
Yoh's wide, wondering eyes were spacious with bewilderment. He repeated, "Huh?"
A slight sigh of exasperation escaped her, but it was lost in her continued excitement. "I didn't think we had a chance, but, oh Yoh, what a miracle!" Yoh realized no further explanation was coming, so he watched carefully as Anna drew out the envelope's contents, hoping to figure it out. Her excitement was contagious, and he watched breathlessly as a rectangle of paper slid onto the countertop, followed by another. A check, maybe? Are our money troubles finally at an end? A million yen would really go a long way to securing our future…
Her blue beads bounced off her chest as she leapt in the air. "Let's go! Start getting ready, Yoh, we've gotta see this right now!"
For good measure, Yoh gave a final "Huh?" and decided to settle the matter once and for all. He stood up, meandered to the countertop and squinted at the slips of paper. The hopes that had briefly welled in his chest were dashed as though Anna's blade had sliced them instead of the envelope.
"Oh, we just won a couple of movie tickets," Yoh realized, disappointment unmistakably dampening his tone.
"What?!" she demanded, as though he had admitted to cheating on her. "Just movie tickets? I guess…He's only my favorite actor, and this is only supposed to be the best romantic comedy in years…Oh, what a piece of manhood he is—" Anna froze mid-sentence, her hands passionately clasped before her chest, her eyes mixed with desire and guilt, and embarrassment rushed deep red into her skin as her eyes darted over to her fiancé.
He rolled his eyes.
"What I meant to say," she tried, hastily scrambling to Yoh's side and placing a sincere hand upon his shoulder, "is that I've really wanted to see this movie, but, well, financially…I'm sure you'll enjoy it too, Yoh."
The reassurance of her hand upon his shoulder made him smile despite himself. "I don't care how lame the movie is, I'll enjoy it as long as we can watch it together."
She gave a little chuckle, but inwardly she blushed even more fiercely at his corny words. "Honestly, maybe you should write a movie script. You're certainly enough of a hopeless romantic for it."
As quickly as her hand had made his shoulder tingle, it was gone, instead picking up one of the movie tickets from the table. She headed upstairs to freshen up, leaving Yoh feeling oddly upbeat despite being condemned to watching a nauseating chick flick. He unrolled his shirt sleeves and buttoned up the front, even doing the cuffs, and he tugged at the wrinkles desperately. At the kitchen sink he washed his face, shaking beads of water out of his messy hair, and nervously rubbed his chin, though he knew he probably wouldn't need to shave for several days yet. Once he was satisfied with his hygiene, he waited for Anna to descend the stairs, but not for long…
The sight of her jammed his thought processes and flooded his brain with overwhelming emotions, some of them as unfamiliar as they were pleasurable…Anna had doffed her customary headgear, and her loose blond locks cascaded to the tops of her shoulders, just barely skirting the sides of her penetrating eyes. She wore a black top as usual, but its hems seemed somewhat less conservative than before; Yoh's stunned eyes involuntarily took in the teasing bits of cleavage that were visible at either side of the neck slit, and the silky, slender legs that seemed to meld with the high hem of her skirt…
"Anna…"
She hesitated on the last stair, finally realizing she had unwittingly garnered Yoh's undivided attention, but recovered and walked directly before him.
"Yes?"
Anna could see his Adam's apple bob as he took a dry swallow.
"You look…" Beautiful. Stunning. Wonderful. "…Erm, never mind."
Evidently the deep hue that Yoh's skin suddenly took on spoke the words he hadn't been able to, as Anna's features softened, and before he knew what was happening, one of his hands was holding the front door open for her, while his other locked fingers with one of hers…
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Their hands swayed forwards and back as they approached the marquee, but as they abruptly halted their leisurely walk, they separated violently.
"No. You're…Don't joke about that. The movie starts in five minutes." Anna's hand, still warm from Yoh's sweaty, nervous, yet caring grip, began dangerously balling into a frustrated fist…
"I…I'm not kidding, Anna," replied Yoh meekly. "I would have remembered, but—" But I saw you coming down the stairs and, well, shit, you would forget everything you were thinking of if you saw someone that beautiful walking towards you! "…But I…I screwed up, I'm sorry…"
"Well, I…I really want to see this movie, Yoh. I'm going to see it, whether you can come with me or not. It's your own damn fault for being so friggin' absent-minded, seriously."
Something was missing from her ultimatum; she turned her back on him, but with a hint of hesitance, and her voice shook even as it adopted the glacial tone Yoh had come to dread…
He sighed, watching the blonde halo fade from view behind the tinted doors of the cinema, and gradually came to stare down his own reflection. He ruefully rolled his sleeves back up and unbuttoned the front, but at that moment his reflection was thrown askew, and a tall, broad-shouldered young man swaggered towards him. The ludicrousness of his puffy shirt was outweighed only by the flamboyance of his pompadour, but Yoh did not laugh; he knew this man, down to his hirsute, thick arms and bushy eyebrows…
"Yoh-sama!" The man stopped short a few paces of Yoh when he realized all was not well. "Why the long face?"
"Ryu…hey," he managed, straining against his own frown to make a thoroughly unconvincing smile.
"No, none of that. Out with it. Why are you even here, anyway? If Anna finds you here…" When he saw Yoh's shoulders slump at the mention of Anna's name, he realized the source of Yoh's discontent. "Hey, buck up, Master. Guys like us, we don't need no stinkin' girls anyhow. A dame just gets in the way when we're looking for our Best Place." With a reassuring smirk, Ryu gestured to Yoh to follow. Mired in his own gloom, Yoh acquiesced and found himself sitting in the cramped sidecar of a motorcycle. Its engine roared with raw power and belched exhaust, sending the pair onto the blacktop. The scene scrolled past them as the bustling city ceded gradually to bare plains, and, eventually, verdant trees that choked the horizon. They rode in a silence broken only by the motorcycle's purrs and the rickety sidecar clattering against rough patches on the road. A clearing came into view in the distance, and Ryu braked gently, easing the hog into a small parking lot fronting a squat white structure flanked by dilapidated benches coated in peeling green paint.
Stretching and grunting, Ryu unstrapped his helmet and tossed it into the sidecar once Yoh vacated it. Wordlessly he strode to one of the benches, reclining himself upon it, and gazing out with unfocused eyes. Yoh joined him, and even after the long ride found himself still vaguely dissatisfied with the fiasco at the theater.
Finally Ryu spoke. "A little slice of heaven, wouldn't you say?"
Yoh fidgeted upon the warped bench. Sure, the trees were imposing and lush, reaching out to the cloudy sky as though searching for a greater being, but he could smell the distinct odor that wafted from the building just to his side…
"It's…Ryu, this is just a highway rest stop." He didn't mean to sound rude, but he ascribed his curtness to Anna.
"That it is," he replied, fishing a crumpled pack of Lucky Sevens out of his front pocket. His callused thumb coaxed a flame from his burnished lighter, and Yoh watched as wisps of smoke drifted like loose threads into the still, humid air, and disappeared. "But your Best Place probably won't be the same as mine. If you'll pardon the pun, your mileage may vary."
It's universal: No matter how good or foul your mood, and no matter how much effort went into making it, any given pun will be met with a hearty groan. Yoh did not disappoint.
"Sorry, I had to," Ryu apologized with a shrug. He thrust the cellophane-shrouded pack at Yoh's chest. "Would you like one?"
He was about to decline, but his interaction with Anna had really thrown his brain for a loop. The cigarette felt foreign between his lips, and he breathed in timidly. Immediately a burning filled his lungs, and he coughed violently, feeling as though a particularly vicious kick had been planted square in his chest…
"See? We both have different tastes," Ryu continued casually, as though Yoh weren't spitting onto the grass now, trying to rid his mouth of the acrid taste of the tobacco. "Rest stops are my Best Place, because I'm a wanderer at heart. I've always been. I've never had a stable place to call home, and these little outposts in the middle of nowhere…They're like meeting places for fellow roamers like me. I know whenever I see a truck parked in one of these stalls, that its owner is an eternal traveler the same way I am. Somehow the thought that there are others like me out there makes me feel…less alone, in a way."
Yoh nodded, sobered slightly by Ryu's unusual eloquence.
"Now I ask you, Master. Do you have a Best Place? That special spot that makes you feel happy and complete just thinking about being there? Where your troubles melt away and nothing else matters, where being there is not just the only thing that matters, but the only thing, period?"
As he mulled it over, a smile broke on Yoh's face for the first time since he realized he had forgotten his movie ticket. Indeed, he knew where his Best Place truly was, and he thought of it now, and, just as Ryu had described, he felt the unease of the afternoon abate as he imagined himself within the confines of his Best Place, and the accompanying warmth that radiated against his skin. He was already there in his mind by the time he had stuffed himself back in Ryu's sidecar, roaring back towards civilization and the theatre…
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Blinding light flooded the theater as the movie screen filled up with pure white. The female lead, dressed in an implausibly luxuriant wedding dress, delivered an innuendo-laden line through her pearly teeth that left the audience roaring with laughter. Anna joined in and involuntarily looked over to see if he was also laughing—
She cut short her giggle as a small lump formed in the back of her throat. Now the male lead, suave and handsome as ever, bowed his head slightly and acknowledged his bride's double-entendre. They embraced; the camera zoomed in to show off the makeup artist's mastery of his trade, as flawless cheeks nuzzled against each other. Anna casually stretched her arms in her seat, draping one upon the headrest next to hers, and glanced over seductively, seeing if he had noticed—
Her sigh was swallowed up by the booming speakers, but she already knew what she had to do…
Meanwhile Yoh had dismounted from Ryu's sidecar, waving goodbye even as his tires squealed upon the greasy pavement. He guessed the movie still had a good half-hour left, and he noticed his reflection again. Once more he toyed with his sleeves, slipped buttons into eyes and wiggled his hair into a semblance of order, and once more the reflection slid to one side as the door swung open…
For a split second Yoh thought some glare had streaked upon the tinted glass, but then he noticed the azure strands of beads upon the blackness, and the shock of golden hair that loomed ever larger as the black-clad figure strode nearer.
He discovered himself as tongue-tied as he was happy at this new turn of events. "Anna…"
She was no better at expressing herself: "Oh, Yoh…" What happened next certainly surprised both of them; Anna bridged the remaining gap between them, and Yoh felt unparalleled joy shiver through his body as her delicate arms wrapped around his waist. His surprised gasp blew past her face…and the hug broke apart nearly as quickly as it had formed.
"Yoh! Did you smoke?!"
Uh-oh… "Er, no, that was Ryu…"
"You met up with Wooden Sword Ryu?" Anna inquired. "What'd you guys do?"
"He told me all about his Best Place. And he helped me find mine."
She laughed, her arms reaching behind Yoh's back once more. "You two are more alike than either of you would like to admit. Both such hopeless romantics…but then again, I like that."
The excitement and joy returned to Yoh as her arms encircled his waist, and as he felt her supple body press against his gently, all other thoughts vacated his mind, until he could see only two figures from above, embracing warmly in the ether…
"So what is your Best Place?"
"Where else? In your arms, of course."
Anna shook her head slightly. "Hopeless. Romantic."
Some outside anxiety returned to Yoh's mind briefly. "But wait…unless that was the shortest movie ever, you're missing the ending right now!"
"Yeah, but what does it matter? I already know how it ends, Yoh."
She leaned into him slightly, feeling his surprised lips brush hers, but he overcame the initial shock and pushed with his lips gently, and felt a burning in his chest again, but this time in a euphoric way, and he continued to draw Anna into his mouth and lungs, breathing in her passion, and exhaling his own, and it pirouetted upon their tongues as they lolled to and fro. Even when their lips finally separated, the warmth and security of Anna's arms kept him elated, and he rested his chin lightly upon her shoulder, pressed gently against her back, and felt her soft hair tickle him upon his neck. Moviegoers hurried past them, bellowing and shoving, but they paid no mind: Only they mattered; only they existed. There was no makeup artist, no key grip, no director, but then again, they didn't need anyone but each other, and that is the essence of the Best Place…