In the following chapter, you should be aware that things happen. Many things. Uh-happening things. Yup. Goddamnit! Just read the damned thing!
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The music pulsed around him like some formless, living thing, trying to draw him in with its rhythmic heartbeat. He chose to ignore it. He had better things to do. Getting piss drunk took effort, damn it.
"Hey, lovely, why aren't you out dancing?" A slim arm was snaked around his neck, accompanied by a wave of choking perfume.
Youji glanced over his shoulder, wound up spluttering around a mouthful of long, platinum blonde hair. Upon blowing the hair out of his airway he found himself eye level with a pair of bright blue breasts. The breasts weren't literally blue, merely the shirt. A month or two ago, this wouldn't be a bad place to find himself, staring down some sapphire blue breasts. Right now, in the middle of a serious guilt trip, status: not welcome.
"I'm busy with a solely self-inclusive pity party right now." He hoped she'd take a hint and bugger off to hang all over someone else.
"I always thought it took two to party." She decided the angle at which she thrust her cleavage at him must not have been doing the trick. "I'm always ready to party, baby."
Youji wondered if she could sound anymore like a B movie. He was willing to bet she could. "Not to belittle you, but I'm quite content to sit here by myself." A not so subtle dismissal. Would she accept it and go? Of course not.
Time for a girlish little pout from her direction.
"Would it help if I told you I was gay?" He sighed tiredly, swirling ice around in the now empty glass. That certainly wasn't an excuse he'd stooped to before, but then again, he was usually trying to reel easy lays in, not beat them off with a stick.
Bosomy girl gave a few startled gasps. "Oh! I never would have guessed. Sorry!" She managed to sound more surprised than miffed. She was still annoying and he couldn't have been any more pleased when she walked away.
He was supposed to be visiting a dead girl right now. Well, not literally dead. She was in a coma. He was supposed to sit there and listen to the whirring of life-support machinery and perhaps read a book at her, carry out a one-sided conversation. In the end he hadn't had a choice on the leaving the house matter. It was better to lie and have Aya back in a sociable mood than to stick to his guns and right out refuse to pay dear old Aya-chan a visit. That would lead to a small-scale massacre within the confines of their home.
Aya, the conscious Aya, Ran, had explained something along the lines of his not feeling worthy of visiting her in his 'crippled' state. Youji couldn't figure out if he was just having some sort of womanish fit and trying to get some sympathy or if he had really convinced himself that he was going to limp for the rest of his life. He was guessing it was the latter of the two options.
"You want another drink?" Another buxom blond in his face; only the bartender this time. "If that's a no, you do need to make room, buddy. You're taking up space a paying customer could occupy." He threw down more money and told her to keep it coming. She readily obliged, it being her job and all.
It wasn't even a fair demand, or a rational one, telling Youji that he had to go visit some lifeless body in its brother's stead. This was yet another time when he wished painful deaths on all fucked-up people. Specifically, the fucked-up people he dated.
He'd made it halfway to the hospital, realized he honestly didn't feel like going through with it, turned around and headed somewhere he could get drunk. He hadn't wanted to head back to his old haunts, it would be too much like showing up again and saying 'Guess what, I'm a depressed loser again! Welcome me with wide-open arms!' Then all his middle-aged ex-cohorts could get up and douse him with bad beer and they could all get down to the serious business of being worthless drunks.
Time passed at a crawl. Every few minutes he'd glance at his watch, expecting hours to have passed. He'd decided to stay away for a set time limit. He couldn't return home until nine. Hospital visiting hours ended at six, but Ran would expect him to be his usual crafty self and stay long after, escaping detection by all.
'How are you going to explain being drunk?' The voice of reason started nagging him in the back of his skull. It sounded annoyingly like Ran. 'You're not supposed to call him that', the voice reminded him. "Unless we're fucking." Youji realized a few moments to late that he was now replying out-loud to the voice in his head. The few people close enough to have heard him were pointedly ignoring him. Insanity might be catching.
Another hour crawled by, another long, slow, agonizing hour. Youji gave up and returned for home an entire half an hour early. He'd think up a plausible explanation for his inebriated state when the time came. The only time he generated originality was when he was on the spot.
Youji had mastered the art of driving-drunk a long while ago. He'd yet to get a ticket for being an alcohol-sodden idiot behind the wheel of a vehicle. There were a few jammed in the dashboard concerning some of his excessive speeding, but none for DWI. Go him.
The other car was gone from the creepy old garage. The only significance there was the fact that if Aya wound up killing him in a fit of rage, it would be easier for him to hide Youij's body without any witnesses. No lights at all. The house might as well be empty. Maybe it was. Soft footsteps were necessary.
"You reek of alcohol." The sneer was obvious in Aya's voice.
"You try sitting in a room with a body for a few hours, see how long staying-sober sounds good to you." Youji gave himself a mental pat on the back. That was smooth, real smooth. Sounded like him, irrepressibly irresponsible to a T.
"How did she look?" Aya appeared to have bought it, but with Aya you never knew, he could be a sneaky little son of a bitch.
"She looked very, asleep." Youji changed his mind. Mixing drunkenness with a general need for intelligence never went well. "She did a hell of a lot of breathing too, that was good. She's not much of a talker; further proof you and she are related." Yup, drunk and intelligent were passing acquaintances at best.
"You turn everything into a joke." Aya switched on a table light, turning the living room into shadowed grounds for a confrontation.
"You turn everything into a fucking dirge. All I ever hear from you is a steady mantra of 'poor me, poor us, poor me, my life sucks and everyone is at fault.' Can't you ever thing anything cheerful or worthwhile? Why am I always the one who has to give in on issues and stop being mad so you can be right? You're not always right! Even you, Mr. Gimpy the Wonder Prick, can occasionally make mistakes." He stomped his foot at the end of his speech. It seemed like a fitting emphasis. It made his perception of the surrounding world spin like a top. Alcohol, can't live with it, can't get suitably intoxicated without it.
"You're so drunk you don't even know what you're saying." Aya was obviously trying not to get angry. "What next, are you going to take up smoking again? Should I slap some caulking on all those leaks to hold them off for a week or two and set up shop for you in the broken bedroom? Save us all some trouble?"
Youji did get angry. He found it was becoming an easier and easier emotion to attain. Gritting his teeth against the words trying to flood out of his mouth, against the anger gripping his chest like a restraining force, Youji did the only thing he thought wise. He left. Got back in the car, drove off into the night.
No attention was paid to his destination, his hands steered and his eyes watched for other cars and speed limits. After a while he realized his surroundings were familiar. He was heading back to the hospital. Out in the middle of nowhere, an odd location for a hospital. An odd location to become his objective.
Youji parked the car, opened the trunk. There was a handy little kit hidden underneath the carpet in the trunk. He was rarely issued memos letting him know on what given day he'd need scaling equipment so he just made sure he had the proper equipment with him at all times. He knew he must be completely out of it, thinking about breaking into a hospital. No, not thinking about it, planning it and getting ready to go through with it.
He hadn't even come up with a reason for his decision. 'Because you're going to try and make up for having lied.' The voice in his head told him. 'An atonement. You'll hang out with the dead girl for a few hours and you'll feel better about not having done so in the first place.' Youji decided he was glad the voice in the back of his head only showed up when he was inebriated AND faced with serious moral dilemmas.
It was a simple matter to fish around in his memories and determine which window was hers. Even easier to send up a grappling hook. He loved technology and all its useful advantages. Only technology would come up with a grappling hook that would actually meld with the surface it connected with. Natural skills had him up and on that precarious ledge in a matter of minutes. It was only the seventh floor, either way.
Instant warm air as he opened the window. It wasn't locked. It was on the seventh floor, why would it be locked. Excepting Youji himself, very few people had any evil designs involving an illicit trip to the hospital via an upper-story window. The light was on, he realized as he silently pushed the curtain aside. For a moment he tried to quickly come up with a proper response if he'd somehow deposited himself in the wrong room. A false alarm. Just that lone figure lying in bed, surrounded by machines that seemed more alive than she did.
"Hello, Aya." He whispered, unnerved by her lack of motion. People who didn't move or speak for long periods of time were supposed to be dead by default, but there she was, her chest rising and falling. He wondered what he would do if her eyes suddenly opened. He supposed the proper reaction would be one of amazed joy, because Ay-no, Ran's beloved sister had returned to the land of the living. He supposed his real reaction would be a few shocked expressions conveying nothing but horror and a hasty retreat back out the window. It would just be fucking creepy, truth be told.
"I'm Youji." He kept it down, feeling ridiculous and certainly not wanting to attract attention. "I'm a... friend of your brother's. Ran. I came to see you because he can't right now. Well, actually he's just being a stubborn little asshole." He laughed nervously. "Mind if I take a seat, young lady?" He noiselessly drew over a chair.
She had nothing to say in reply. Really not much of a conversationalist at all, as Youji had previously noted. "You used to know him, probably knew him better then than I'll ever know him. What am I supposed to do? I do my damndest to make sure things go his way, he really is important to me; I don't think I would have gotten through a lot of things without his help. Wouldn't have wound up as arguably sane as I am now, at least. What is it he expects in return? Am I supposed to perform miracles and walk on water? Hell, you're all but dead and you probably have more to say about your wants and needs than he does. Tell me then, what am I supposed to do?"
He sat there for hours, talking to her lifeless form, not expecting an answer, merely working things out for himself. When he heard the morning nurses beginning to make their rounds, he slipped back out the window, detached the climb line and drove himself home, a hell of a lot more sober than he had been.
The other car was back in the garage. He wearily headed for the living room, prepared to catch a few hours of sleep on the couch before the morning bustle of the others woke him up. The couch was already taken up by a dozing Aya. His eyes snapped open as Youji's foot inadvertently came down on a creaking floorboard. For a moment he was startled, defensive; in that state of waking where nothing is certain and everything is an enemy until proven otherwise.
"When did you get back?" He sat up, rubbing at his eyes, ignoring the coat Youji still had on, other signs of his recent arrival.
"Few minutes ago."
Aya stood up, walked towards Youji. Youji expected a big 'Welcome Home' punch, stood still and got ready to take it like a man. Instead Aya paused for a moment, working out something only he would probably ever comprehend. Then his arms came up and he pulled Youji into a rough hug.
"I was starting to worry about you." He said softly. "I wait up most of the night and you don't even have a ready explanation for where the hell you've been." Aya didn't sound like he really minded the last one.
"I was chatting with that dead sister of yours." Youji rested head against Aya's, eyes closed.
Aya gave that some more thought, considered contesting Youji's description of his sole living relative again and decided to leave that for another morning. "What did she have to say?" The corner of his mouth twitched up, the closest he'd ever get to making a joke about the issue that had forced his hand in the shaping of this life he now led.
"Not much. I'm tired. I don't know if you got much napping done down here, but I wouldn't mind a morning in bed." It was the closest Youji would come to offering an olive branch in response to Aya's slight hint of lightening up.
"Bed sounds good." They headed up the stairs, shut out as much of the rising sun's light as they could with the curtains and fell asleep facing each other for the first time in weeks.
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Don't ask me where I'm going with these two! While they are both half of this fanfiction, I mainly started this sequel up so I could do twisted things to Ken and Omi. Hehe, for Aya and Youji I have to invent the plot chapter by chapter. Poor them. Anyway, I'll get to work on the next installment as soon as I can. Until then, give me cookies! I'd certainly appreciate feedback or e-mails! You can reach me at darkhunter@ijustdontcare.com or akainobaka@mchsi.com !
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The music pulsed around him like some formless, living thing, trying to draw him in with its rhythmic heartbeat. He chose to ignore it. He had better things to do. Getting piss drunk took effort, damn it.
"Hey, lovely, why aren't you out dancing?" A slim arm was snaked around his neck, accompanied by a wave of choking perfume.
Youji glanced over his shoulder, wound up spluttering around a mouthful of long, platinum blonde hair. Upon blowing the hair out of his airway he found himself eye level with a pair of bright blue breasts. The breasts weren't literally blue, merely the shirt. A month or two ago, this wouldn't be a bad place to find himself, staring down some sapphire blue breasts. Right now, in the middle of a serious guilt trip, status: not welcome.
"I'm busy with a solely self-inclusive pity party right now." He hoped she'd take a hint and bugger off to hang all over someone else.
"I always thought it took two to party." She decided the angle at which she thrust her cleavage at him must not have been doing the trick. "I'm always ready to party, baby."
Youji wondered if she could sound anymore like a B movie. He was willing to bet she could. "Not to belittle you, but I'm quite content to sit here by myself." A not so subtle dismissal. Would she accept it and go? Of course not.
Time for a girlish little pout from her direction.
"Would it help if I told you I was gay?" He sighed tiredly, swirling ice around in the now empty glass. That certainly wasn't an excuse he'd stooped to before, but then again, he was usually trying to reel easy lays in, not beat them off with a stick.
Bosomy girl gave a few startled gasps. "Oh! I never would have guessed. Sorry!" She managed to sound more surprised than miffed. She was still annoying and he couldn't have been any more pleased when she walked away.
He was supposed to be visiting a dead girl right now. Well, not literally dead. She was in a coma. He was supposed to sit there and listen to the whirring of life-support machinery and perhaps read a book at her, carry out a one-sided conversation. In the end he hadn't had a choice on the leaving the house matter. It was better to lie and have Aya back in a sociable mood than to stick to his guns and right out refuse to pay dear old Aya-chan a visit. That would lead to a small-scale massacre within the confines of their home.
Aya, the conscious Aya, Ran, had explained something along the lines of his not feeling worthy of visiting her in his 'crippled' state. Youji couldn't figure out if he was just having some sort of womanish fit and trying to get some sympathy or if he had really convinced himself that he was going to limp for the rest of his life. He was guessing it was the latter of the two options.
"You want another drink?" Another buxom blond in his face; only the bartender this time. "If that's a no, you do need to make room, buddy. You're taking up space a paying customer could occupy." He threw down more money and told her to keep it coming. She readily obliged, it being her job and all.
It wasn't even a fair demand, or a rational one, telling Youji that he had to go visit some lifeless body in its brother's stead. This was yet another time when he wished painful deaths on all fucked-up people. Specifically, the fucked-up people he dated.
He'd made it halfway to the hospital, realized he honestly didn't feel like going through with it, turned around and headed somewhere he could get drunk. He hadn't wanted to head back to his old haunts, it would be too much like showing up again and saying 'Guess what, I'm a depressed loser again! Welcome me with wide-open arms!' Then all his middle-aged ex-cohorts could get up and douse him with bad beer and they could all get down to the serious business of being worthless drunks.
Time passed at a crawl. Every few minutes he'd glance at his watch, expecting hours to have passed. He'd decided to stay away for a set time limit. He couldn't return home until nine. Hospital visiting hours ended at six, but Ran would expect him to be his usual crafty self and stay long after, escaping detection by all.
'How are you going to explain being drunk?' The voice of reason started nagging him in the back of his skull. It sounded annoyingly like Ran. 'You're not supposed to call him that', the voice reminded him. "Unless we're fucking." Youji realized a few moments to late that he was now replying out-loud to the voice in his head. The few people close enough to have heard him were pointedly ignoring him. Insanity might be catching.
Another hour crawled by, another long, slow, agonizing hour. Youji gave up and returned for home an entire half an hour early. He'd think up a plausible explanation for his inebriated state when the time came. The only time he generated originality was when he was on the spot.
Youji had mastered the art of driving-drunk a long while ago. He'd yet to get a ticket for being an alcohol-sodden idiot behind the wheel of a vehicle. There were a few jammed in the dashboard concerning some of his excessive speeding, but none for DWI. Go him.
The other car was gone from the creepy old garage. The only significance there was the fact that if Aya wound up killing him in a fit of rage, it would be easier for him to hide Youij's body without any witnesses. No lights at all. The house might as well be empty. Maybe it was. Soft footsteps were necessary.
"You reek of alcohol." The sneer was obvious in Aya's voice.
"You try sitting in a room with a body for a few hours, see how long staying-sober sounds good to you." Youji gave himself a mental pat on the back. That was smooth, real smooth. Sounded like him, irrepressibly irresponsible to a T.
"How did she look?" Aya appeared to have bought it, but with Aya you never knew, he could be a sneaky little son of a bitch.
"She looked very, asleep." Youji changed his mind. Mixing drunkenness with a general need for intelligence never went well. "She did a hell of a lot of breathing too, that was good. She's not much of a talker; further proof you and she are related." Yup, drunk and intelligent were passing acquaintances at best.
"You turn everything into a joke." Aya switched on a table light, turning the living room into shadowed grounds for a confrontation.
"You turn everything into a fucking dirge. All I ever hear from you is a steady mantra of 'poor me, poor us, poor me, my life sucks and everyone is at fault.' Can't you ever thing anything cheerful or worthwhile? Why am I always the one who has to give in on issues and stop being mad so you can be right? You're not always right! Even you, Mr. Gimpy the Wonder Prick, can occasionally make mistakes." He stomped his foot at the end of his speech. It seemed like a fitting emphasis. It made his perception of the surrounding world spin like a top. Alcohol, can't live with it, can't get suitably intoxicated without it.
"You're so drunk you don't even know what you're saying." Aya was obviously trying not to get angry. "What next, are you going to take up smoking again? Should I slap some caulking on all those leaks to hold them off for a week or two and set up shop for you in the broken bedroom? Save us all some trouble?"
Youji did get angry. He found it was becoming an easier and easier emotion to attain. Gritting his teeth against the words trying to flood out of his mouth, against the anger gripping his chest like a restraining force, Youji did the only thing he thought wise. He left. Got back in the car, drove off into the night.
No attention was paid to his destination, his hands steered and his eyes watched for other cars and speed limits. After a while he realized his surroundings were familiar. He was heading back to the hospital. Out in the middle of nowhere, an odd location for a hospital. An odd location to become his objective.
Youji parked the car, opened the trunk. There was a handy little kit hidden underneath the carpet in the trunk. He was rarely issued memos letting him know on what given day he'd need scaling equipment so he just made sure he had the proper equipment with him at all times. He knew he must be completely out of it, thinking about breaking into a hospital. No, not thinking about it, planning it and getting ready to go through with it.
He hadn't even come up with a reason for his decision. 'Because you're going to try and make up for having lied.' The voice in his head told him. 'An atonement. You'll hang out with the dead girl for a few hours and you'll feel better about not having done so in the first place.' Youji decided he was glad the voice in the back of his head only showed up when he was inebriated AND faced with serious moral dilemmas.
It was a simple matter to fish around in his memories and determine which window was hers. Even easier to send up a grappling hook. He loved technology and all its useful advantages. Only technology would come up with a grappling hook that would actually meld with the surface it connected with. Natural skills had him up and on that precarious ledge in a matter of minutes. It was only the seventh floor, either way.
Instant warm air as he opened the window. It wasn't locked. It was on the seventh floor, why would it be locked. Excepting Youji himself, very few people had any evil designs involving an illicit trip to the hospital via an upper-story window. The light was on, he realized as he silently pushed the curtain aside. For a moment he tried to quickly come up with a proper response if he'd somehow deposited himself in the wrong room. A false alarm. Just that lone figure lying in bed, surrounded by machines that seemed more alive than she did.
"Hello, Aya." He whispered, unnerved by her lack of motion. People who didn't move or speak for long periods of time were supposed to be dead by default, but there she was, her chest rising and falling. He wondered what he would do if her eyes suddenly opened. He supposed the proper reaction would be one of amazed joy, because Ay-no, Ran's beloved sister had returned to the land of the living. He supposed his real reaction would be a few shocked expressions conveying nothing but horror and a hasty retreat back out the window. It would just be fucking creepy, truth be told.
"I'm Youji." He kept it down, feeling ridiculous and certainly not wanting to attract attention. "I'm a... friend of your brother's. Ran. I came to see you because he can't right now. Well, actually he's just being a stubborn little asshole." He laughed nervously. "Mind if I take a seat, young lady?" He noiselessly drew over a chair.
She had nothing to say in reply. Really not much of a conversationalist at all, as Youji had previously noted. "You used to know him, probably knew him better then than I'll ever know him. What am I supposed to do? I do my damndest to make sure things go his way, he really is important to me; I don't think I would have gotten through a lot of things without his help. Wouldn't have wound up as arguably sane as I am now, at least. What is it he expects in return? Am I supposed to perform miracles and walk on water? Hell, you're all but dead and you probably have more to say about your wants and needs than he does. Tell me then, what am I supposed to do?"
He sat there for hours, talking to her lifeless form, not expecting an answer, merely working things out for himself. When he heard the morning nurses beginning to make their rounds, he slipped back out the window, detached the climb line and drove himself home, a hell of a lot more sober than he had been.
The other car was back in the garage. He wearily headed for the living room, prepared to catch a few hours of sleep on the couch before the morning bustle of the others woke him up. The couch was already taken up by a dozing Aya. His eyes snapped open as Youji's foot inadvertently came down on a creaking floorboard. For a moment he was startled, defensive; in that state of waking where nothing is certain and everything is an enemy until proven otherwise.
"When did you get back?" He sat up, rubbing at his eyes, ignoring the coat Youji still had on, other signs of his recent arrival.
"Few minutes ago."
Aya stood up, walked towards Youji. Youji expected a big 'Welcome Home' punch, stood still and got ready to take it like a man. Instead Aya paused for a moment, working out something only he would probably ever comprehend. Then his arms came up and he pulled Youji into a rough hug.
"I was starting to worry about you." He said softly. "I wait up most of the night and you don't even have a ready explanation for where the hell you've been." Aya didn't sound like he really minded the last one.
"I was chatting with that dead sister of yours." Youji rested head against Aya's, eyes closed.
Aya gave that some more thought, considered contesting Youji's description of his sole living relative again and decided to leave that for another morning. "What did she have to say?" The corner of his mouth twitched up, the closest he'd ever get to making a joke about the issue that had forced his hand in the shaping of this life he now led.
"Not much. I'm tired. I don't know if you got much napping done down here, but I wouldn't mind a morning in bed." It was the closest Youji would come to offering an olive branch in response to Aya's slight hint of lightening up.
"Bed sounds good." They headed up the stairs, shut out as much of the rising sun's light as they could with the curtains and fell asleep facing each other for the first time in weeks.
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Don't ask me where I'm going with these two! While they are both half of this fanfiction, I mainly started this sequel up so I could do twisted things to Ken and Omi. Hehe, for Aya and Youji I have to invent the plot chapter by chapter. Poor them. Anyway, I'll get to work on the next installment as soon as I can. Until then, give me cookies! I'd certainly appreciate feedback or e-mails! You can reach me at darkhunter@ijustdontcare.com or akainobaka@mchsi.com !