White strands of silvery hair blew in the wind as the tall snake-like man wove his way through a crowd standing in front of the latest display of a small street corner store. With him he dragged his loyal friends, Shigure and drag-boy, Hatori. Of course, Hatori Sohma was no drag queen, but Ayame himself and Shigure had found it absolutely hilarious when the two had come up with the nickname as a play on Hatori's dragon form. From that day on they addressed him as "drag-boy" whenever they could.
Ayame continued down the street at a higher speed than his two comrades, who followed at a leisurely pace. He just had to make it to the Wal Mart as soon as possible! If he didn't, then his new hairbrush might already be gone! He just couldn't think about that, though. The thing that he had to do now was make it to the store, and bring his friends with him.
Why he had wanted Shigure and Hatori along, he did not know.
Finally! He had made it to the large department store in the middle of the city! Deciding it might be better to wait on his companions, he stopped outside of the door and watched for them. Eventually, Shigure came alone at a nice skipping speed, while Hatori showed up a few seconds later... walking. Walking was so boring most of the time, but Hatori just made it look good.
"Ok. We're in and out, Ayame. I don't want to spend too long in this place." Hatori was the one imploring the overactive snakely one in front of him. Ayame nodded as if he were an obedient dog and clapped his hands together in glee after agreeing.
"Come on, 'Gure! They may be all gone!" The sentence wasn't totally finished before the two pranced off towards the personal care section of the store. Shigure didn't really care about what other people thought about his style of moving. He was a novelist. And Ayame was just a flaming queen, so it didn't matter either way to him. Hatori rolled his eyes and followed... walking. In the back of his mind, he wondered why Ayame didn't just go to one of the hair salon places and get a more expensive, nicer hairbrush if he cared so much about his mop.
Shigure went along with Ayame until their arrival at the hair-care department. Only, they never made it that far. Just as they were about to step over the threshold, whatever that happened to be, an extremely loud bang sounded from somewhere around the only entrance to the place. "Great." Ayame pouted, despite his curiosity nipping at him. The hairbrush would have to wait until a few minutes later.
"I suppose we should be going to see what that was?" Shigure had resumed his "normal" air and looked worriedly towards the distant doors. Ayame nodded his agreement and followed close behind as Shigure led the way. By now a small crowd had gathered around the automatic doorways. Something struck Shigure as funny, however. He couldn't see the light from the outside sun. As he glanced around, he noticed Hatori standing off to the side and away from the crowd, his arms crossed over his chest and a defeated look working its way on to his face.
"Oi! What's up, drag-boy? What happened?" Hatori didn't answer but pointed hurriedly to the doors as he face-faulted, his face coming in contact with the palm of his hand. Shigure's eyes followed the finger to the doors. Something was blocking the door! Completely, at that. Not a speck of light that wasn't from the overhead bulbs could be seen.
"What's happened here!" a middle aged man with an important-looking uniform demanded. A slather of muffled together voices answered his question. A small, young man, looking to be only 17 or so, pushed to the front of the crowd. He wore a blue vest, signaling that he was an employee at the store. "Something's blocking the way, sir!" "Don't make me smack you, boy. I can damn well tell that something is blocking the door!"
No one ever saw the employee again.
An hour passed as Hatori stood against the wall, watching intently with arms crossed over his chest, waiting to be let out of the store. Of course they'd get out soon. What was the government for, anyways, but to fix situations like this in an instant? "You can never trust them, though..." the doctor muttered out loud.
"Wha..? Ayame! He spoke!" Shigure had been sitting on the floor next to Hatori, watching the man for any sign of life. Ayame sat across from dog- man and perked up instantly. Hatori only gave them a small glare in response to their excitement and went back to wondering when he'd be able to get out. Ayame and Shigure pouted at the one standing above them and went back to gossiping among themselves until they were going to leave.
For some reason, Ayame always seemed to turn Shigure into just as much of a gossiping queen as he was whenever they were together.
"Sorry folks. Seems we can't figure out what is blocking the door. And the people outside aren't doing a very good job of moving that... thing. Very sorry, but it looks like we may be stuck here overnight."
Many protesting voices began yelling all at once and even more bodies leapt at Uniform Man.
Hatori's jaw would have hit the floor if he weren't so calm and civilized.
Shigure and Ayame's jaws hit the floor. They'd have to spend the night here? That could be a good thing, or a bad thing. Both had some devious plans already.
"Don't move."
"'Tori! You're no fun! We want to go... find a good place to sleep tonight! Yeah. It is getting on 8 o'clock already, you know. There have to be at least 300 people in here right now. All the good spots will be taken if we don't hurry!" Shigure knew he was being childish about it, and that it was just a department store, but there was fun to be had. Ayame nodded eagerly and agreed with his partner in crime.
Before Hatori could even make Ayame bow to his whim, the two were gone.
"I will not be responsible." The inwardly flustered doctor announced to no one and slid down the wall to a sitting position, at the same time rolling his jacket up and holding it absently against his chest. It was going to be a long night.