Geeh. This took forever, I know. But, look at it this way: Now that I've been in Japan, I can safely say that I know *nothing* about the lay of Tokyo ^_^

But it should be just a tad more accurate. ;_; And did you know there are no street names in Japan? Makes it hell to get anywhere.

The Adventures of Sakuma Ryuuichi

by Eike

Chapter 8

Ryuuichi looked at the list Shuuichi was holding. They didn't let him hold it, in case his hand fell off and the paper flew away.

But either way, the ingredients...

"Where are we going to find 'ice cream of the future'?" He asked. It sounded yummy, whatever it was.

"That's not the hardest part. What is an Eigorian?"

Shuuichi flipped the paper around several times, trying to make sense of it.

Tatsuha and Yuki came out of the grocery store then, carrying two small bags. There was another twitch building in Yuki's eye (that made how many now? 23?), although Ryuuichi couldn't imagine why. Tatsuha was looking pretty healthy, a bright smile and nice, bright, shiny teeth in his face. Man, they must be a really wealthy family, even Touma couldn't afford braces. It was said that Koyasu Takehito himself was afraid that braces would drive him into bankruptcy. So how did Tatsuha afford them? What with all the money he threw away on Nittle Grasper merchandise, he could hardly pay for them himself...

"Ok! We got the grape jelly, the strawberry yogurt, and the 20 cans of Colombian coffee. But we'll need to go to a specialty store if we want Muenster Cheese."

The two brothers set the bags down while Shuuichi put a check next to the item names.

"You should have seen the cashier... first, she thought I was Aniki. Then she thought we were twins. Then she asked Aniki for his autograph. And she wouldn't stop making comments about what we were buying." Tatsuha laughed a bit, although the glare he was getting from Yuki shut him up quickly. Ryuuichi decided that the best tactic would be to ignore him, especially since the summer humidity was making his limbs fall off all that much faster.

Speaking of the heat, he started noticing the awful stench he was giving off. Even Kumagorou, in his dirty brown state, didn't want to get close to him anymore.

"Yuki, remember when we went to Odaiba? They have this ice cream there." Shuuichi looked pensive for a moment. Ryuuichi wondered what the word "pensive" meant, and why he had used it. Then he tried to remember when he had gone on a date with Shuuichi and Yuki to Odaiba, but it seemed to have been wiped from his memory banks. He briefly wondered what idiot had gone messing with his memory chips again. He hated it when that happened! It made everybody think he was an idjot!

"Who you call idjot? I not idjot!" He yelled at the top of his lungs.

That got him brief stares from his companions before they went back to discussing their next plan of attack.

Ryuu-chan THEN decided that the heat must be making his brain fall apart. Maybe he didn't even HAVE a brain anymore! Zombies were always eating people's brains, it was probably because they didn't have any of their own. Oh no, he was gonna turn into a brain-eater! Waaaah!!!

"Still doesn't explain where to find a zombie slayer's hair. Or what about the soul of music? And how much foil is 'enough foil to wrap a man in'?" Tatsuha leaned over Shuichi's shoulder and OMG where was his hand going?! Yuki noticed it too, because there was a loud slap type sound (as opposed to a ring, clang, or thud) and Tatsuha was sporting a bright red mark on his cheek.

"Aniki! What was that for?"

Ryuuichi started to wave his arms around. "You big pervert! You were gonna--"

He needed to learn to just stop moving. His arm fell to the floor with a clang. Or was that a slap? He wasn't sure. It didn't sound like a sploosh, but it might have been that. Either way, his arm was on the floor, and the flies immediately started buzzing around. Damned humidity.

"Can somebody get that for me?" He hated flies. They were uncute bugs and made icky "wanwan" sounds.

Shuuichi and Yuki stared blankly at him. He wished they would at least PRETEND to help him.

Not that they would have been able to beat the Tatsuha whirlwind that picked up his arm before he even finished his sentence. The dong he heard was Tatsuha running past him. A klirr and a bang later, and the fan was re-attaching the arm à la Cinderella.

"...Right. Anyway. We also need an ID's blood. 'Best kind of ID: crusader turned maniac.' What the..." Shuuichi trailed off when he saw Tatsuha. The boy was still kneeling in front of Ryuu-chan, eyes shimmering, a loud FANFANFAN in the air.

"The arm fits! You are truly the princess from the ball! Quick, let us be wed and live happily ever after!" He tugged on Ryuuichi's arm to pull him down to the same level. Instead, the recently re-attached arm came off with a "ping."

Ryuuichi wanted to sob. "Can you stop doing that?"

Nobody listened, of course. Shuuichi and Yuki were muttering something about Hamtaro fans, and Tatsuha was cuddling his arm as the flies barked around.

Actually, there was one advantage to his various body parts being able to fly off-- he didn't feel as hot and sweaty as the other three looked. Although, he seemed to be seeing things... Ryuuichi rubbed his eyes. No, Yuki and Shuuichi really WERE kissing and groping each other... and Tatsuha really was licking that arm... He rubbed his eyes again. This time, they were all back in their regular positions.

Something told him that he just didn't want to know.

"Oy, Tatsuha! Do you know where we can get a voodoo doll?" Yuki asked his brother, sounding extremely irritated. But he hardly sounded anything else. Ryuu-chan couldn't remember once hearing the meany sound happy. Although there was that one time when he was going to visit Shuu-chan but the strange noises from inside the apartment stopped him, and he could have sworn that Yuki-san sounded kind of happy then. There was also heavy breathing, so maybe he was just sick or something.

"I guess you can have mine. It hasn't done me any good.," Tatsuha mutter. He caressed the arm lightly, then sighed and started sucking on the thumb. Ryuuichi quickly turned away. Maybe he didn't want the arm back after all.

"SHE'S INSANE!"

All three of them turned to look at Shuuichi. "What's the matter?"

"This hag wants model Kyou's autograph. Do you know how impossible that is? My sister begged me to get her one last year, and his stupid manager wouldn't let me even near him!"

"......."

Yuki sighed in disgust. "Great. Just GREAT." Another sigh. "I'll ask Touma about it though. He has connections."

There was another one of those empty silences, but less unpleasant this time, because instead of a "jiiiiiiiiin" sound, it sounded more like "sileeeeeeence."

Yuki was the first to make a move. He picked up his bag and headed towards the car door. Shuuichi quickly followed. Ryuuichi wondered what he should do, but when even Tatsuha ran after them, he really had little choice.

.... He kind of wished he could get his arm back though.

-tsuzuku-

Yosh! ^_^ And I swear, Japan is REALLY hot and humid during the summer. Gave me a frigging heat stroke. Also, I put in a lot of lil cameos and stuff. But I know nobody will get the model Kyou reference: in the manga "Yorozuya Toukaidou Honpo" by Ryou Saenagi, there is an extremely famous model named Kyou. ^_^ (Real name: Suruga Kaori. Despite his girly name, Kaori is a guy ^_^). I wuv Kyou to lil bits. ^_^
http://cf.geocities.com/omikudou/yorozuya.html -- go there for translations and some images.

And yes, I meant to make the sound effects wrong. Note: "jiiiin" is the sound silence makes in manga. I swear! And dogs go "wan wan" instead of "woof woof."

Eigorian : In Japan, there's a popular "learn English" program called "Eigorian." ^_^ It annoyed the heck out of me. Eigorians themselves are these funky mushrooms. http://www.nhk.or.jp/eigorian/ For more info. If you can read Japanese. ._.

Hamtaro: I think it's already been released here in the US, but in any case... it's an adorable little anime hamster. ^_^ And when we went to Tokyo, there was a Hamtaro presentation in front of one the stores and we got Hamtaro fans! The kind you wave for air.

Idjot: No, that's not a misspelling. Has anybody played IceWind Dale with a low-intelligence character?

Anything else: Come on, just take a guess. And some are references to fics.