London Rain

London Rain

Part three

~Natsu~

A/N: Oh dear God, I'm actually getting round to continuing this. I can't remember ever having so much free time before! It rocks. Thanks for all the encouraging reviews I've been getting, people. It's a real ego-boost. ^^ Anyway…I really don't know where this part is going. I think I might try to work the Notting Hill problem in so that it looks like I planned it that way. Um…I guess that's it really. Except to say that…I have nothing against pigeons really and…Custard Creams are the best. Yummy. ^^

Thanks to Atsuko for giving me the idea of using Sumi's name for one of the band members!

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I wake to the sound of birds shrieking and squawking all over the place. I've never noticed quite how high-pitched and irritating birds are. God…the noise is incessant. And why exactly are there so many birds in a huge city like London anyway? You think they'd be eaten by all those huge monster pigeons waddling around everywhere or something. I mean, God, those things are HUGE. You'd think that they'd have to scrape together just to make ends meet, but no. People should stop feeding them. Even if that is impossible. They all congregate around the bench you're sitting on, innocently eating your sandwich and stare. And stare. And stare, until you find yourself screaming blue murder and hurling the sandwich into the awaiting flock just to make them leave you alone. Personally I think that the little kids that run around trying to step on them have the right idea.

I sigh, realising that the only way to save my throbbing head from the noise is to actually get out of bed. Easier said than done. Maybe withdrawal symptoms get progressively worse.

Or maybe it's worse because I hadn't been able to sleep last night panicking about meeting Alice. It's the most ridiculous thing ever. I'm scared to meet this woman…I don't even know why really. I guess it's because I'm going to have to open up to her. I hate doing that. And I can't just clam up and ignore her like I did with Just Call Me Kate because Tai asked me to do it for him. Damn Tai. If he'd said something like 'do it for yourself', that would have been okay. 'Do it for Missy', 'Do it for your parents'. But no. Do it for him.

I take a shower once I've finally managed to work the damn thing. You have to turn it towards the blue to make it hot and the red to make it cold. How stupid is that? Trust Tai to have a malfunctioning shower and not tell me. He's already left when I pad into the kitchen, but Marie's there for some inexplicable reason, bustling around the kitchen.

"Morning love," She says cheerfully, "Sleep well?"

"Um…yes, thanks." Not true but less hassle.

"Good, good. Shower catch you out?" She eyes my damp hair, her hands still submerged in a sink full of froth.

"Yeah." What the hell is she doing here?

"Never mind. There's toast on the table. I can't be arsed to cook anything today. Bad for you anyway…although…" she turns around smirking, drying her hands on a tea towel, "you look like you could use a nice bit of lard. We'll have a full English breakfast tomorrow. Yes. That'll be nice. I guess you're wondering what I'm doing here."

"Oh…" She's continuing before I can form an answer.

"I work as Taichi's housekeeper. You think he could keep this place on his own?"

"Well I…"

"I'm nearly done in here now. Then I'll leave you in peace and go make the beds." She sighs. "I don't know…all go, isn't it?"

"I guess so, yes."

"I saw your group on the telly last night."

"Oh?" I sit down at the table, pulling a piece of toast out of the metal toast holding thing. I hope they were going mad.

"Didn't look too happy, they didn't."

"Good." I say before I can stop myself and Marie looks at me with a half smile.

"The blonde girl was telling the press that you're ill."

Poor Missy. "Oh really?"

"You're lucky they don't know where you are you know. You probably don't want Tai opening the door to the press half-dressed." She smirks.

"What?"

"Don't look so shocked," She laughs, "It'd be like Hugh Grant in 'Notting Hill', wouldn't it?"

I tilt my head, imagining Tai with Hugh Grant hair. My God, that's funny. I can't stop the laughter breaking out and in seconds I'm in hysterics, Marie quick to follow.

"Guess you're getting better already. They say laughter is the best cure," She grins after composing herself. She has one of those loud, hearty laughs that is always contagious. "You should laugh more, love. You have a nice laugh. Easy on the ears. Well, better get upstairs. Those beds won't make themselves." And with that, she's wandering off, leaving me alone in the kitchen, still grinning moronically.

* * * * * * *

Later that afternoon I'm sitting rigidly in the living room, wondering if I should be saying anything. I can tell already that this is going to go horribly. If she was Tai's therapist, no doubt she knows all about me from him and she probably sees me as some cold-hearted, self-obsessed bastard. Plus there's the whole fact that I'm famous and I'm panicking that she's going to sell out to the press on everything I tell her. And as if that wasn't enough, my hair has dried into a strange scary shape because I forgot to do anything to it. So now in her eyes, I look like an evil, selfish rock star with a dollar sign slapped on my forehead and incredibly scary hair. Hooray.

I don't want to have to tell her anything.

Despite the fact that Alice and Marie are obviously good friends and probably about the same age, they couldn't look more different. Contrary to Marie's stout, frizzy-haired appearance, Alice is tall and slim with intelligent grey eyes and neat dark hair cut to chin length. She's wearing a simple blue suit with heels and has unnaturally shiny legs. I don't want to do this now. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I should stick to my original plan of swallowing as many pills as I can and being remembered as the tragic music hero. Oh…I want a cigarette. Let's throw them all in the bin! Yeah, great idea Yamato.

"Are you nervous?" Alice is asking me. She has a perfectly rounded, stereotypically clear British accent and is studying me intently with those grey eyes.

"I…no, of course I'm not." I say in a very nervous way.

"It's perfectly normal to be nervous your first time with a new therapist. I expect you think that I'm going to want to know your life history and every personal little detail about you, hmm?" I don't answer and she continues. "Well, that's not the way I operate, Yamato. What we're going to do today is this. I want you to talk to me. About anything at all. Tell me what's on your mind, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with you and your problems." She sits back and waits patiently.

What the hell is this? Talk about anything? What am I supposed to talk about?

"What's been on your mind today?" She prompts.

What's been on my mind today? Surprisingly little. Toast and who invented the toast holder. Pigeons. What Marie's hair might be made of. How pissed off are each of my band members on a scale of one to ten. Tai with Hugh Grant hair. She's still watching me expectantly…Fuck, better say something. Anything she says, it won't matter what you say. Only she'll probably analyse it to death and say 'I see' in that really disapproving way that the patient is supposed to pick up on without thinking that they're supposed to and... No, we're still not talking, are we? Speak, Yamato! Interview tactics!

I talk about pigeons.

And to my utter shock, she's nodding enthusiastically.

"I hate the things. When I was little, my mum took me to Trafalgar Square to feed them and I just panicked," She waves her hands in a panicky gesture to illustrate her point, "Hate them. Ick. So…what started you thinking about pigeons?" She asks me with a slight smile.

I tell her about the noise of the birds and how much my head was hurting anyway and five minutes later she's got me openly talking about the drug addiction and hardly realising that I'm doing so.

"What made you start, Yamato?" She asks me simply after listening carefully to everything I tell her, and I find that I want to answer honestly. Which is a first. I want to tell the truth and I want her to make things right for me. For some bizarre reason she reminds me of my mother; I just want to fall into her arms and feel safe and loved and understood. And I was never even that close to my mother.

"I don't know. I wish I could understand it…like, the whole time I knew that it was the wrong thing to be doing, but I just couldn't quite…see any reason not to. Oh, I know that it could've killed me and all that, but that really didn't seem like a good enough reason. I can't explain it."

"Do you think that perhaps you were blocking things out? Things that were too difficult to face up to?"

"Maybe…but I don't really have much to block out…"

"No bad memories? Traumatic experiences?"

I shake my head. There's trauma, but not anything that I look back on and can't face.

"Hmm…could it simply have been the pressure of being away from familiar faces and surroundings? The stress of your work?"

"I don't know…perhaps."

"That sounds like a 'no' to me." She says. I notice that she hasn't written a single thing down yet. Just Call Me Kate was scribbling frantically in her little pad all through our sessions. It was so distracting.

I sigh. "I think it was partly that but…"

"There was something else."

"Yeah."

"Hmm," she says again, "well, it looks like our hour's just about up, Yamato. We'll leave it there and then we can talk some more tomorrow."

"Okay." Has it been that long already? How much time did I spend prattling about pigeons?

"What I want you to do for me is to think about it tonight. Sit somewhere quiet where the birds can't get you and turn everything over in your mind. I don't expect you to have any shocking revelations, but it always helps to take a closer look at everything. Do you think you can do that?"

"Sure."

"Alright and also, I want you to go to the kitchen, find something sweet and eat as much of it as you can," she says, then, seeing my confused expression adds, "Comfort food. Always works wonders," and winks as she stands up.

* * * * * * * *

When Tai comes home from work it's to find me sitting placidly at his kitchen table steadily munching my way through a packet of Custard Cream cookies that Marie has given me, while she bustles around fixing dinner.

"Hey. How'd it go?" He asks, running a hand through rain-spattered brown hair and taking a seat at the table.

"Good, actually," I say, through a mouthful of cookie.

"Yeah? Told ya so." He reaches to take a cookie but I pull them away.

"No, these are mine. It's part of the therapy."

"Yeah right. I'm hungry."

"Then you can wait for your meal, Taichi." Marie chips in from behind me as she drains pasta at the sink. I suppress the urge to stick my tongue out in a very childish way and instead very maturely hold the packet out to him.

"Well I suppose I could spare just one…"

He grins and takes one, pulling the two pieces apart to lick the middle out.

And I can't believe how dirty that sentence sounded.

"Right, here we go," Marie's setting plates in front of us and snatching the cookies away, "I'll see you boys tomorrow. Try to behave, okay?" She says with a grin before leaving us to our meal.

"Bye Marie," Taichi says lazily, already twirling his fork into the spaghetti.

"Yeah, bye," I say, starting on my own food.

We eat in silence for a while, both chewing automatically and not looking anywhere in particular. Taichi eventually breaks the silence.

"So you liked Alice then, huh?"

I nod. Back to small talk, are we? "She seems nice. Easy to talk to."

"Yeah…she is. Are you going to see her again tomorrow?"

"I guess so."

"Good."

Chew, chew, chew…

I hate this silence. It's really unnerving. I think I'll just settle on staring at my dinner. Seems like a good plan. Spaghetti is actually very interesting. It's nice and long and squiggly and…I wonder what those green bits are? Pepper perhaps? Courgette? See, this is working perfectly. Just look at the dinner. I'm sure Tai has the same plan. I'll just look up and see and…oh no, crap he's staring at me. Probably thinks I'm mad because I'm studying the food so intently. Maybe he thinks I'm insulting Marie's cooking in some way. Did he look angry?

I glance up again.

Um…no. No, that's definitely a different kind of look. Shit.

I have a sudden strange urge to blush madly and hide under the table.

Maybe he senses my discomfort because he seems to snap out of whatever worrying kind of trance he was in and says "Have you spoken to what's-his-name? Um…bodyguard guy?"

"Yutaka?" I say, risking meeting his eyes.

"Yeah."

"No…I haven't actually. Do you think I should call him to let him know how I'm getting on?"

"Well it has been three days."

"Yeah…can I do it now?"

"Sure. Phone's right there." He gestures with his fork and I get up and dial with my back to him. What I can't see can't panic me. Not that it should panic me anyway…no, I can follow that confusing chain of thoughts later.

The mobile only rings twice before it's answered and I wait expectantly for Yutaka's familiar gruff voice.

"Yamato?" Oh…dear. Wrong voice…

"Yamato?" Missy repeats menacingly.

"Ah…yeah. Hi Missy…"

"Where the fuck are you?"

"I'm just…with a friend." I turn slightly and Taichi's listening with a frown.

"With a friend or with a 'friend'?" she asks with acidic suspicion.

"A friend, Missy. Why are you answering Yutaka's phone?"

"Nevermind. Were you actually planning to come back or are we just going to ignore all the concerts that have been scheduled?" She asks too pleasantly.

"Well I…"

"Dammit, Yamato you can't just walk out like this! You have an obligation to be here! You have an obligation to your fans, you have an obligation to the rest of the band and you have an obligation to me!"

"I'm not 'obliged' to do anything for you," I say, feeling the anger start to creep into my voice.

"Oh yes you fucking are. Remember signing a little thing called a contract?"

"I want speak to Yutaka, Missy."

"Not until you tell me where you are."

"I've told you where I am, now put Yutaka on."

"I want to know specifically."

"Tough! Put Yutaka on!"

"No! Where the hell are you?"

"Missy, piss off, I want to speak to Yutaka!" There's muffled voices for a moment and I can pick up Missy's random swear words.

"Hey, Yamato." Says a very dejected Yutaka.

"Hi…how's…well…"

"Everyone's freaking. They all want to know where you are."

"Did you tell them?"

"Of course not."

"Oh…thanks."

"Yeah…we don't know what to tell the papers. They're gonna start making it up if they don't get an answer soon."

I sigh, dropping my head back against the wall and ignoring Taichi's concerned looks. Why didn't I remember to think about what Yutaka would have to deal with? Missy's barely civil to him at the best of times and now it's going to be worse for him. God, I'm stupid. What, did I think that this wouldn't affect anyone else? And Missy's right, I am letting everyone down. All the fans…they must think I'm a complete jerk. And what about the band? I don't like Koji he's a stuck-up prick. But Sumi and Tomo aren't that bad…in fact when I think about it they're actually pretty decent people. They don't deserve to have to put up with this.

"Maybe I should come back," I say defeatedly into the phone.

"No!" Yutaka and Taichi both cry at once.

I look up at my friend who's glancing around for an excuse as Yutaka continues and I make a huge effort to listen to my bodyguard, temporarily pushing Tai's outburst into a little corner of my mind. "You can't come back now. Not until you're ready," He pauses and lowers his voice, "You're not gonna let her win are you?"

"Well…"

"No, Yamato, I don't think you heard me. You're NOT going to let her win, are you?"

"No. Of course I'm not,"

"I can hold up the fort here a bit longer so take your time, alright?"

"Yeah…thanks, Yutaka."

"No problem. Well, yeah it is a problem, but I don't mind problems."

I grin. "Okay…well…bye."

"See ya." The dull sound of the line being disconnected, then the endless beep of the dial tone. I hang up and sit back down at the table.

Taichi's picking carefully through the remains of his meal, avoiding anything that appears vaguely vegetable-shaped.

He's also carefully avoiding looking at me.

Hmm…let's see…ex-lover/childhood friend with whom I have been reunited after two years suddenly bursts out with a passionate and very negative answer to the question of me leaving. Yet we are nothing more than friends (i.e. minimum touching and absolutely no fucking). Must approach the situation carefully.

What are the options?

Okay…one. Ignore it and pretend I didn't hear. Would work for most situations but here…it'll just piss both of us off. Two. Pass it off as a joke. Could work…very Tai-like option so he'd probably happily go along with it. But if I cross the line with it then I might hurt his feelings. I do have a tendency to trip over the line and go sprawling. Three…make an equally passionate outburst. No. That one's definitely not a safe option.

"Desperate for me to stay, Tai?" I ask dryly. Oops…mind the line…

He looks up, quirking an eyebrow.

"Oh, obviously," he returns with a smirk.

"Aha…" I mutter with a smile that felt way too flirtatious.

He blinks, trying to keep his face straight. "What can I say? I wallow in your company."

"Wallow? What kind of word is that?!"

"What? It's a word."

"Yeah but you don't 'wallow' in someone's company! It makes me think of like, mud and…"

"Mud, huh?" Is that what my smile looks like? Like his? Hope not…you shouldn't really smile at 'just a friend' like that.

"Yes, mud. And hippopotamuses."

He laughs. "Hippopotamuses? That's…" He's cut off by a rumble of thunder from outside and he glances at the window with mild interest. "Ooh, a storm."

"I like storms." I hear myself say as a camera flash of lightning assaults my eyes through the misty glass of the kitchen window.

"Yeah I know."

"Always makes me think of…" That huge blackout we had when we first got together. What a fun night that was. "…scary movies. And popcorn and stuff." I lie.

"Yeah? Always makes me think of sex." He says casually and I can't help but narrow my eyes. Why do I even bother trying to be tactful and mindful of his feelings? Feelings…huh.

"Hmm…why do you think that is then?" I ask innocently, "Kind of a weird thing to associate with a storm. Most people associate sex with say…silk sheets. Red wine…black lace…"

"Chocolate syrup…" He adds, grinning. Oh yes, I remember that.

"Handcuffs." I return. Ah, the memories.

"Whips." Ooh, that's a new one.

I laugh. This is completely going down the wrong road. Or so my brain informs me.

"Anyway," Taichi starts firmly, his brain evidently feeding him similar orders to change the subject, "It's not so much the storm as the possibility of a black out that does it."

"Black out. Yeah."

"I can't remember the last time there was a black out. Well I can but…"

"But you probably shouldn't think about it." I say pointedly.

"No…"

"No." Cue long-thoughtful-dramatic type pause.

"You want coffee?"

"Sure, okay."

* * * * * * * *

We're drinking our coffee in silence ten minutes later when all the lights go out.

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A/N: Lalala…now you can wait for the next part ^^. This went okay-ish, but I can and will do better. The next part will be fun. I actually have a plan for what I'm going to write. *passes out in shock* Ooh, but you know what? If you're any kind of fan author or artist then I'd love it if you'd visit my site and submit stuff. Please? *looks hopeful*

http://www.angelfire.com/anime2/werobsessed/