Russian Blue by Rainy

Edited by Nariel

Comments: This chapter is another one Nariel has edited for me… Hah! I have never realized how many grammatical mistakes I had up until now. Okay, on with the story. The song here is "Back to Good" by Matchbox 20. Fake and all its characters are creations of Sanami Matoh. Other characters and situations are created by me.

Chapter 3

Ryo never thought the sky would look so peaceful. Not like the one he found the last day he spent in England. He almost felt sorry to leave, now that he found the peace in his heart he'd come here to seek. It was as if Dee had given him permission to live his life once more (or at least he felt like that, not as if it was actually true) and Ryo was now on the edge of a new awaiting - especially when tea was so damn good.

Yeah, right -- tea...

"Oi," the cute cashier had said when he looked at the tea Ryo took on the second day he arrived at the store. It was about five or six boxes of it, "You like English tea?"

Ok, so it wasn't exactly the tea. The cashier had found it a bit odd that Ryo came in to the store three times in the last two days just to buy tea. He figured that he had to be some sort of loony who really really enjoyed his tea (much like his uncle Berny really, really enjoyed watching those pictures of naked ladies, but we won't get in to that now, will we?) The store owner (a small man with long nose and a voice that could easily be mistaken by that of a twelve-year-old girl) had offered Ryo a discount card, yet the half Japanese-American man declined the offering with a polite smile and a slight blush that was not at obvious as him returning that same afternoon and being disappointed when Gaiev - the cashier - was not there.

"This morning was 'is last shift," the girl behind the counter said with a very nice English accent, "He said something 'bout him and his sister getting a new flat somewhere -- never said where... or maybe I just wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. He annoys me, to be honest."

At that moment he felt as if he'd lost Dee for a second time. Well, not really. Hard to explain. He knew it wasn't Dee, but he looked so much like him - almost as if Dee has a long-lost twin brother who was waiting for an Oprah reunion show or something... you get the idea. Either way, he felt bad. He felt bad because he felt as if he was betraying Dee's memory in some way. He felt bad because he was now making comparisons between the two when in fact they had nothing in common. He felt worse when he saw that the only reason he kept coming back was to see this guy and that there was a probability that this guy (Gaiev) had gotten freaked out by the loony American boy who kept staring at him. And then he felt embarrassed when he saw he'd been standing there for an hour, and the girl behind the counter was probably calling an ambulance for the insane asylum.

He just ran.

He felt silly when he closed the door behind him, and half laughed at himself for being such a ten-year-old who pulls the pony tail of the girl he likes and then runs. Yet his laughter stopped when he realized that he couldn't see that boy again and was now left with the (void?) knowledge that there was a "Dee-double" out there...

What was with his obsession with this guy!

It was a sight for sore eyes to see Bikky and Carol again. Ryo never thought just how much he'd missed them until he saw them there, at the airport, with banners that said "WELCOME BACK, RYO" and all. Caron seemed especially happy with the tons and tons (well, not TONS, but one gets the idea) of tea Ryo brought back. Bikky just seemed happy to see him again, so fresh and renewed. All the way home he kept talking about how nice the hotel was, how nice the city was, how nice the tea store was, how nice...

How nice...

"We have new neighbors," Carol commented as they were unpacking when they got home.

Home.

"Really?" Ryo asked politely. He really enjoyed the idea of new people in the building.

"Um-hum. They're not from around here. I've only met the girl. She's quite nice. Her name is Ericka and she moved here just a few days ago, from England as a matter of fact..."

"England? What's she doing all the way here?"

"She says she works as a consultant for some company. I really never got it. But she came here with her brother and a friend - I think it's her boyfriend... But I haven't seen them..."

It was late now. The streets' bright colors reminded him that New York never slept, and so he didn't feel too guilty when he walked out of the apartment to smoke a cigarette on the steps and see the nocturnal life that crawled out after ten. Bikky and Carol had begun to be lead that kind of life and so they went out for a movie. Nothing fancy. Ryo wondered when was the last time he'd smoked as peacefully as of this moment - in fact, when did he start smoking! He gave a smirk suspiciously close to laughter at the thought of his mother if she found out that her son was smoking. He wondered what his parents would be like if they had lived to this day. He wondered what that rancid smell was, coming out of the corner of the trashcan in front of the steps. He wondered if he wanted to know. Not really.

"Pardon me, bu' do you have a light?" he heard a voice behind him. He turned around and stood in shock. He was speechless as Gaiev looked at him in wonder and waved a hand in front of him, "'Allo? Did you hear me? DO - YOU - HAVE - A - LIGHT?" he paused every word. Automatically, Ryo gave him his cigarette and Gaiev took it fast, wanting to light his own smoke as fast as he could and get the hell away from this nut job before something odd or bad happened, "Thank you," he said as he walked by, returning the cigarette. Ryo only watched him walk when all of a sudden, he heard a female voice screaming from the third floor...

"GAIEV! DON'T FORGET TO BRING MILK FOR ALEX!"

"I WON'T," he heard Gaiev reply as he walked away along the streets. So... He lived in the same building? He moved THERE!

Ryo's heart could sing...

-------------------------------------------------------------