The Adventures of the Magical Donut and Abraham Lincoln

Notes:  1:04 AM.  Back to the welcoming darkness and wee-hour-of-the-morning randomness.  There is even more blinking yet, and on my part too, since I am falling asleep.  But I must set my biological clock back to its nocturnal state.  It got off because I had to get up early for all those doctor, orthodontist, and/or podiatrist appointments, but now I'm hoping to get back on schedule so I can stay up till about four.

You may be asking, in the last chapter, why I censored Shuuichi and Yuki's kiss, when I didn't for Tatsuha and Ryuuichi's.  That's nice that you ask so much, since it gets you more knowledge, but I'm not gonna answer that question.  Why, you may ask?  If you ask that, you do ask too many questions.

Japanese 500,000 yen (¥500,000) = about $5,000.  I can't tell you exactly, because the currency rate changes everyday, but generally one yen is about equal to one American penny.  I have no idea what is in pounds or euros, for all you weird European people who don't use dollars and pennies and stick random U's in words like color (colour) and behavior (behaviour).  Heh!  Just kidding…  Heh, heh, bet you guys loved that one, huh?    No complaining about that in the reviews, okay?  It was a joke.  I love Europe, because people there are smarter than people here in America.  I mean, just look at how stupid I am, after all.  Oh, and in case you're really bad at math, or just ignored the rest of this paragraph, ¥5,000 = about $50.

Warnings: Yaoi, blinking, maybe some swearing, and more things that I don't know about since I haven't written it yet.  Oh, yeah, and I'm tackling this on my own, unlike the last one and one/half chapters, because Spiwolf7 had to go home.  Yeah, go home, and leave me here all alone in the middle of the night, or early in the morning, trying to write this crap because I have nothing better to do with my life.  Oh yeah, and I taped a picture of Ryuuichi on my wall right next to my computer, and it's very bright and pink, so whenever I stop to 'think,' my eyes will wander over to my wall, straight in front of me, and there will be Ryu-chan, staring back at me, with those huge blue eyes.  He's been there for a while.  That's why this story is so bad.  Because he's really distracting with all his staring.  There's a tiny little spider crawling across his face right now.  If I stop mid-sentence, it's probably because it's bitten me and I've died.  But you wouldn't know if I even stopped mid-sentence, because I won't post this if I'm dead…

Disclaimer: I no own anything of or relating to.  I really have a hard time typing 'disclaimer.'  But that's okay, as long as I put the 's,' huh?

Chapter 4

Yuki stared at the piece of paper with his little brother's scribbly handwriting all over it.  He could not believe it (well, he could believe it, but he really didn't want to).  His brother was holding Sakuma hostage.  For ransom.  Ransom.  When all he had to do was ask if he ever wanted money.  Dumb ass.

Shuuichi was sobbing his eyes out and screaming about how Ryuuichi was gonna die.  Yuki sighed.  He was actually kind of worried about Ryuuichi too, though he would never admit it, but he could not deny the fact that his little brother was nothing less than a pervert.  Probably more than that.  At least he wasn't a necrophiliac, so at least Ryuuichi's life wasn't at stake, but that was only a small comfort.

Yuki read over the note again:

Dear Aniki (Yuki Eiri),

I have Sakuma Ryuuichi.  If you want him back (which I'm sure you do, since you don't want to face Tohma's wrath), come to the park at 2 o'clock with the ransom money—¥500,000.  I will be there with Sakuma-san.  If you fail to show up, he'll get some, and I'm sure you know what I mean.

                                                            With love,

                                                            Tatsuha

"Dammit," Yuki cursed, tearing the note in half.  His hands slid down to his hip pocket for his cigarettes, when realization hit, and he cursed again.  "Which park is he talking about?"

"Oh, I bet it's the one where we first met!" Shuuichi said, gazing at Yuki dreamily.  Yuki looked at the pink-haired, purple-eyed, mop-headed idiot and sighed.  It had already been a long day, and it wasn't even noon yet.

"Shut up," he muttered, looking around to see if there was a vending machine around anywhere for some cigarettes.

"Yuki, it'll be so romantic!" Shuuichi whined, staring at the blue sky with glazed eyes.  "Just you and me, reunited in the place where we were struck with love at first sight, desperately fighting the evil kidnapper to rescue the handsome prince to return him safely home.  Aww, we should go there early so we can spend some time together."

"Shut up!" Yuki repeated.  "Tatsuha said to bring ¥500,000."

"So, we can stop home on the way and pick it up," Shuuichi said.

"Idiot!  I don't just keep that much money lying around in the house."

"Then we go to the bank," Shuuichi said.

"I'm not going to give Tatsuha that much just because he wants it and is playing a childish, not to mention illegal, game to get it."

"But Ryuuichi's in trouble!"

"Do you think I care?"  Well, actually he did, not only because of the threat of Tohma, but also because…Ryuuichi was…kind of…cute…  But that's only because he looks like Shuuichi.  Yeah. 

"Yukiiii…"

"Tch, I plan on getting the idiot back," Yuki muttered, hand instinctively reaching for his pocket for cigarettes.  Dammit.  "I'm just not going to sacrifice a large sum of money to do it."

"Yuki?"

"Don't get me wrong.  I'm only doing this for Tohma, not you or Ryuuichi…"

"YUKI!  I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" Shuuichi cried, launching himself onto the disgruntled, disoriented, disorderly, discombobulated, distraught novelist.  And Shuuichi actually cried, with tears and all.

Tatsuha looked right, then left, then right again before running across the street, nervously glancing around for any sign of pink.  He had to find Ryuuichi quick.  He had already sent the ransom note to his brother, and if he didn't show up at the park, or worse, if he showed up with no Ryuuichi, he was certain that Yuki would kill him.  Literally.  And just by looking at him, too.  That was the most painful of all deaths, Yuki's death glare.  It was like looking at Medusa, only instead of turning to stone and dying, you just die.

Tatsuha stopped when he heard a familiar voice call his name.

"Tatsuha-san, what are you doing here in Tokyo?"  Tatsuha turned to see his most favoritest, not to mention richest, brother-in-law Tohma.  (Tohma was his favoritest, since Shuuichi couldn't really be considered an 'in-law,' since there was nothing lawful about his relationship with Tatsuha's brother). 

Tatsuha turned around to meet Tohma's gaze.  Tohma was wearing that smile.  That one that said, 'I know more than you do, idiot.'  Tatsuha hated that smile, because Tohma always wore it just before he was about to do something illegal, or annoying, one of the two.

"Tohma-san!  Nice to see you, really it is," Tatsuha said, smiling innocently.  He wondered briefly if Tohma already knew that he had kidnapped Ryuuichi and then promptly lost him.  He probably did know, seeing as though Tohma seemed to know everything.

"Yes, it is," Tohma said, his expression unchanging.  "But you never answered my question.  What are you doing here in Tokyo?"

The big, evil, glue-green eyes were burning his skin.  "Uh, I, uh, I…  Oh, I just came to visit you and Mika and Eiri, you know?"

Tohma's expression was still going strong.  "Indeed?  Why didn't you call, then?"

"Oh, uh, well, I was gonna, but then I ran into Aniki, and well… Umm…"

"And Ryuuichi too?"  Smile.

"No, Sakuma-san wasn't with him," Tatsuha said, trying to remember to breathe.  He was almost certain Tohma knew.

"That's strange.  I left Ryuuichi in his care," Tohma said.  "I hope nothing happened to him."  He didn't seem to be hoping too hard, though, because his smile didn't seem worried at all.

"Yeah, yeah, that is strange, isn't it?"  He knows.  I know he knows.  Why is he acting like he doesn't know?  I know he knows I know he knows.  Why does he act like he doesn't know I know he knows I know he knows?

"Well, I hope Eiri-san finds him soon," Tohma said.  He closed his eyes slowly, then opened them and with a flash of light, directed them towards Tatsuha.  "I would probably kill whoever was responsible, if Ryuuichi met any harm."

Gulp.  "Yeah, yeah, I hope so too."

"Well, then, it was nice seeing you again, Tatsuha-san," Tohma said, still smiling wickedly.  "But I must be getting back to work now.  You should stop by our house later on."

"Yeah, I'll be sure to do that," Tatsuha called as Tohma walked away.  The crowd in the street seemed to part for him, and Tatsuha wondered if it was because he was famous and they recognized him, or if it was because he was sending out evil I'll-kill-you-if-you-don't-get-out-of-my-way vibes.  It was possible that normal people just didn't want to get near anyone who was dressed in feathers and lace, especially if it was a man, though that might not be discernable just by looking at his face.  I wish I had as much style as Tohma.

Tatsuha shuddered a little, but once Tohma was safely out of sight, he hurried along in blind pursuit of a certain rock star we all know and love.

Ryuuichi wasn't sure how he and Kumagorou ended up in Chinatown.  But it was really cool.  There were a bunch of shops that looked like little pagoda temples, and lots of Chinese food places, and lots of Chinese stuff, and lots of Chinese people, and lost of old, worn down buildings that looked like they were about to collapse.  Ryuuichi felt like he was actually in China, only in Japan.

Ryuuichi walked into a shop.  There was Chinese music playing in the background.  It sounded pretty, but Ryuuichi couldn't tell who was playing it.  Maybe it was a cd.  Ryuuichi wanted to sing along, because he loved to sing, only he didn't know the words.  Maybe he didn't know the words because he didn't know how to speak Chinese.

"Welcome," the Chinese man behind a glass counter said with a heavy Chinese accent.  Wow, everything about this place really was Chinese…

"Hello," Ryuuichi said.  He then held up Kumagorou and helped him wave, which only made the Chinese man blink.  Blink, blink.

Ryuuichi lowered Kumagorou and blinked back.  He had never seen anyone so culturally stereotypical, other than K.  This man had a long, thin, pointed graying beard and two matching thin wisps of mustache that joined the beard below his mouth.  His face was wide, and his eyes were slanty, and he was old, and he wore those old man Chinese clothes that you always see in movies and a little black hat on his head, and he was balding but his hair was long and tied into a bun-thingy, and he was slightly hunched over.  He looked very Chinese.

The man coughed a raspy cough.  Typical dying old Chinese shopkeeper.  Ryuuichi wondered what kind of magical secrets he kept in the back room behind that black fringe over the door. 

"May I help you?" the Chinese man said after he finished coughing.

Blink, blink.  "Do you have any chocolate milk?"

The Chinese man looked a little confused, but smiled.  "No, sorry, I don't."

"Oh," Ryuuichi said sadly, lowering his head.  Then he noticed Kumagorou was looking at something, so he looked up to see.  It was really pretty and shiny, so Ryuuichi walked over to it and lifted his finger to touch it.  But then he remembered when he had touched Tatsuha's shiny eye and Tatsuha had gotten mad at him, so Ryuuichi thought maybe he shouldn't touch it.  Even though he really wanted to, he put his hand down.

"Ah, I see you've noticed our silver statues," said a heavily accented voice.  Ryuuichi looked around to see whom it had come from, then noticed a very stereotypical Chinese man behind a glass counter.

"Uhn, yeah," Ryuuichi said, nodding slightly.  He wondered just when the Chinese man had appeared there; Ryuuichi didn't remember him being there when he first came in.

The Chinese man coughed, then hobbled over to where Ryuuichi stood, leaning on a Chinese-looking cane for support.  Ryuuichi looked down at him.  There was something wrong.  Ryuuichi never remembered ever meeting anyone that was shorter than him, if you ignore Shuuichi and Fujisaki and Noriko, but they don't count because they're nearly as tall as Ryu-chan.  This old Chinese man barely went past his waist.  There must be something wrong with him.

"You have good taste," the man observed.  "You came to the prettiest ones first."

Ryuuichi looked at where the man was pointing.  There were shiny statues there.  They were very pretty, and Ryuuichi wanted to touch them, but then he remembered what happened when he had touched Tatsuha's shiny eye, and decided not to.

"Pretty!" Ryuuichi said gazing up at the statues.

"Yes, and they are very rare too," said a gruff voice.  Was that a Chinese accent?  Ryuuichi looked over to where it came from and saw a very short, stereotypical Chinese shopkeeper standing beside him.  That's strange, when did he get there?  He was pointing at something, so Ryuuichi looked up to see really shiny and pretty statues on a shelf there.  They were very pretty, and Ryuuichi wanted to touch them, but then he remembered what happened to Tatsuha's eye, so he decided not to.

"Pretty statues," Ryuuichi said, pointing up at them, just like the Chinese man was doing.  "I should get one for Tatsuha-san to apologize for poking him in the eye.  Yeah, I bet he'll like that."

The old man was staring at him.  Ryuuichi blinked down at him, noticing how Chinese he looked.

"Do you want one, then?" the man asked, just to make sure.  Ryuuichi nodded.  "Which one?"

"Eh?" Ryuuichi asked, blinking.  He looked up at the shelves, and noticed there was more than one statue.  "Uhn…  That one!" he pointed a little baby dragon curled around a staff.  "It's a dragon, just like Ryu-chan!!!"  (If you don't get that, you probably don't speak Japanese.  Either that, or you're not very observant.)

The old man climbed up onto a stool and picked the statue up off the self.  He held it lower for Ryuuichi to see, the latter nodding in approval.  The Chinese then brought the figurine to the glass counter and set it down next to a cash register.  Ryuuichi wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do, so he just followed the man.

"That'll be ¥5,000," the old man said, pulling out brown paper to wrap it with.  Ryuuichi squeaked and began to search his pockets, turning them inside out and emptying all their contents onto the counter.  There was a bunch of paper, most of which were notes from Tohma, reminding him to do something, but also most of which he never remembered doing.  There was also a large collection of miscellaneous items, including rubber bands, broken strawberry pocky (Ryuuichi found that on the ground and was gonna share it with Shuuichi), scotch tape, a pencil eraser, a shiny rock, and some pink strips of plastic.  There was also a crushed flower.  Ryuuichi wondered how that had gotten in his pocket.  Then he remembered that he had picked it for Yuki.  Now it was dead.  Tears began to gathering at the bottom of his eyes as he looked at the pretty pink flower.

The Chinese man, however, took these tears to mean that Ryuuichi was sad because he didn't have any money.  He smiled reassuringly, gently patting Ryuuichi's hands that still clutched the wilted flower.

"Don't worry, little boy," he said in his raspy Chinese accent.  "I'll put it on hold for you, and you can come back when you get more money."

Ryuuichi nodded through his tears, even though he hadn't really heard what the man said, but he remembered that nodding always seemed to satisfy Tohma when he looked at Ryuuichi with that raised eyebrow.  Just like it always satisfied Tohma, it also seemed to satisfy this man as well.

The man began to pick up all the junk laid across his counter and hand it to Ryuuichi.  Ryuuichi took it with a confused glance, wondering why the Chinese man was being so generous and giving him all this nice stuff, and then he put it back into his pockets.  They almost had everything back in its rightful place in the singer's pants when the man picked up a plastic card.  He looked at it quizzically, raising one eyebrow, then looked at Ryuuichi, then looked back at the card, then at Ryuuichi, then back at the card, then at Ryuuichi, then at the card, then at Ryuuichi, then at the card, then at Ryuuichi again.  His eyes stayed on Ryuuichi this time though, but he looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

"Wait, you're Sakuma Ryuuichi?" the man asked at last.  Ryuuichi looked around to see whom he was talking to, and when he saw that no one was around, he pointed to himself and blinked.  "Sakuma Ryuuichi, of Nittle Grasper?"

Ryuuichi blinked again, blink, blink, and then he nodded with a happy smile.  The Chinese man made a gasp-moan-sigh kind of noise and dropped the card back onto the counter, as if he were not allowed to touch it.  Ryuuichi picked it up and looked at it.  Oh, he remembered taking the picture for this card at the TMV, or maybe it was the RMV…  Or the DMV?  Oh well, it doesn't matter.  Tohma said that he had wanted Ryu-chan to get a license so that he could drive himself places and wouldn't have to rely on Tohma for rides or get lost trying to take the bus.  They took this picture and issued his license because Tohma paid them a lot of money, but Ryuuichi had thought he lost this card and he couldn't drive without it, so Tohma took him back to the picture place to get another one but they were closed down for illegal dealing…or something like that.  But now, Ryuuichi found the card again and Tohma would be so happy.

"The real…Sakuma…Ryuuichi?" the Chinese man was saying when Ryuuichi tuned him back in.  He looked like a really stereotypical old Chinese person.

Ryuuichi nodded with a smile.

"I-I don't believe it!  Why would Sakuma Ryuuichi want to come into a run-down store like this?  Heh, it's a gift from God!  It must be!  It's really nice to actually meet you, Sakuma-san!  I've waited so long for this!  I have all your cd's, and I've gone to as many concerts as I possibly can, and I think you are really great at singing, and you are the best, and you have the voice of an angel!" the Chinese man cried, and his voice suddenly didn't seem quite so raspy.

Ryuuichi smiled and scratched the back of his head.  "Thank you!  Wow, you're really nice, Mister!"

The man looked taken aback that the real Sakuma Ryuuichi had actually paid him a compliment.  He was silent for nearly five minutes, until Ryuuichi started to blink at him.  Blink, blink, blink.  Blink.

"Sa-Sakuma-san, uh, can I have your autograph?  I'll give you this dragon statue for free, if you give me your autograph!"

Ryuuichi blinked up at him.  Normally he would give autographs for free, without requiring anything in return, but he really wanted the dragon statue.  Besides, he had seen Tohma do things like this before, so it couldn't be too bad.  Ryuuichi pulled out a trusty permanent black ink marker magically from nowhere and held it up for the Chinese man to gaze at in awe.

The Chinese man had already produced a picture of Ryuuichi singing at one of his concerts with his eyes bright and sparkly.  Ryuuichi never realized how sparkly his own eyes were.

"My name's Ling Ho Zhang," the man said, pointing at the picture anxiously.  Ryuuichi pulled off the cap of the marker and began to write in his chicken scratch katakana.

"Ri-n-gu Ho Sha-n-gu," Ryuuichi narrated as he marked the picture.  "You're a nice person.  From—" and then he just scribbled in something that might be mistaken for 'Sakuma Ryuuichi.'

"Oh, thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!" the man said.  Three times.  Ryuuichi knew this, because he counted.  He said it three times.  The man finished wrapping the dragon statue in its brown paper, and then he handed it to Ryuuichi with a bow.  Ryuuichi smiled and waved as he dashed out the door.

"Wow, he was nice, huh, Kumagorou?" Ryuuichi said, once they were out of the shop.  "That was a funny name, though.  'Ri-n-gu Ho Sha-n-gu.'  I wonder if he's Chinese." 

Kumagorou said that he thought that he was.  Ryuuichi agreed.

Ryuuichi wanted to put the dragon in his pocket, but it was too big, so he had to carry it.  Kumagorou got kind of jealous, because he was just shoved between Ryuuichi's arm and his torso, but Ryuuichi told him not to be jealous because the dragon was for Tatsuha and Kumagorou was still his bestest friend.  That made Kumagorou feel a little better, but he still didn't like being carried under Ryuuichi's arm.

Ryuuichi was about to continue his aimless wanderings around Chinatown when he felt cold steel pressed up against his head.  Ryuuichi squeaked and tried to turn his head so he could see his attacker, but the gun was preventing him from doing so.

"I finally found you, Sakuma Ryuuichi," said a sharp, venomous voice.  Ryuuichi heard the gun being cocked.  "Where's your precious Yuki Eiri, now, huh?  And don't get your hopes up; Seguchi is not coming to your rescue this time."  This was followed by the most evil cackling Ryuuichi had ever heard.