02 A Salute to Obnoxious Voices
Daisuke was lost. Horribly lost. Horribly, terribly, extremely, absolutely, very, very lost.
He paused briefly to compliment himself on his vocabulary.
He probably shouldn't have been lost, seeing as he had walked to and from Miyako's apartment enough times to have the route painfully imprinted in his brain. But thinking about someone else had never been good for his attention span, and since he never had that large of one in the first place, it had been too easy for his to miss a turn at an intersection and realize, ten minutes later, that he had no idea where he was. He ended up pacing around the same few blocks, searching for some familiar landmark, some familiar person, some familiar something.
Passing the same tree for the seventh time didn't count.
It wasn't before long that Daisuke stopped paying attention to his surroundings and settled for circling the block moodily, hoping that saving the world had been enough to convince life to cut him some slack and let him off the hook this time. He was special, right? Waiting impatiently for his miracle to arrive, the boy rediscovered the obnoxious voice that had made itself comfortable in his head ever since he had been landed with this new crush.
Daisuke rides the special bus, the voice offered. It sounded suspiciously like Miyako.
Shut up, the boy scowled.
You're right. Sorry. The moment of silence passed quickly, as did the mock-guilt that had accompanied it. Daisuke DRIVES the special bus.
Hey, shut UP. I'm trying to figure out how to get home—
And it's not working...
Maybe if you shut up, it would!
Maybe if you hadn't been fawning over Yamato like a lovesick puppy on crack—
"Is talking to yourself normal for you?" asked a familiar, amused voice. Daisuke looked up, blinking, and recognized who it was immediately. Not hard, since Yamato had been on his mind the whole day. Daisuke flashed him a bright grin.
"Didn't you know? I ride the special bus."
"You're crazy," Iori said flatly.
"You only just noticed?" Takeru replied, idly wondering how he and his friend had managed to get dragged into this one. He hated being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Crazier than usual."
Takeru murmured his agreement before saying, louder, "Miyako, do you really think getting involved is a good idea? Let love take its course, or whatever they say."
Miyako rolled her eyes. "Daisuke and Ken will thank me for this later. Besides, I'm the Child of Love. I know what I'm doing."
Sighing and closing his eyes, the blonde leaned back onthe couch, deeming it a hopeless case. Iori, however, wasn't that quick to let it go. He squirmed uncomfortably, clearing his throat for attention. " Miyako-san..."
The girl eyed him less fiercely than she had his companion. "Iori?"
"I don't think Daisuke likes Ken in that way..."
Surprised by the ridiculous idea, she set it aside without a second thought, waving her hand dismissively. "Of course he does. He described Ken perfectly."
Helpless, Iori gently nudged Takeru in the side for help. The other boy opened his eyes, exasperate, but pitched in anyway for the sake of Iori's sense of morality and Daisuke's currently-nonexistent-yet-soon-to-be-ruined love life. "Maybe it describes someone else too. You never know."
Miyako frowned, glaring. "Are you saying I'm wrong, Takeru?"
"... I'm sorry, did I say something?" Takeru immediately lifted his eyes to the ceiling, studying it with an air of innocence. Iori resisted the urge to smack his forehead.
"That's what I thought," said Miyako. "Okay, so help me out. Ken's visiting Odaiba for the Teen-age Wolves gig this weekend. I can put him and Daisuke in awkward positions the whole day, drop hints, strain their patience and restraint until they can't handle it, and then - bam."
Takeru had closed his eyes again. "Sure, Miyako."
"You think it'll work? I'll have to work on it, make it crafty, but you think...?"
"Sure, Miyako."
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Sure, Miyako."
"... Takeru. I want you to have my babies."
"Sure, Miyako."
The girl immediately set upon beating Takeru up with a sofa cushion while Iori looked around for an open window to jump out of.
Yamato couldn't remember when exactly it had started, but a few weeks ago, Daisuke had started following him. It had been mostly a "hey, you're going in this direction, great, so am I" type of thing. So Daisuke ended up walking him home, claiming that it was along the way when his own apartment complex was in the other direction. Subtlety had never been Daisuke's forte.
Yamato hadn't thought much of it, passing it off as idolization. Besides, he actually liked spending time with the kid. They hadn't really been 'bumping into' each other lately, with The Teen-Age Wolves' schedule picking up as much as it was. He sort of missed it. Daisuke was great company, and never stopped surprising him, like now as Yamato watched him curiously, mouth quirked in amused inquiry. "So you got lost."
"Yeah."
"On the way home."
"Yeah..."
"From Miyako's house."
"Yeah," Daisuke confirmed again, his replies having steadily grown meeker and meeker. "Which I've been to and from countless times before."
Yamato just shook his head, hiding a faint grin. "Only you, Daisuke."
Daisuke jabbed the blonde in the side with his elbow. "Stop laughing at me."
"I'd never."
"You're a worse liar than your brother."
Eyebrows raised, Yamato shot back teasingly, "Wanna make something of it?"
Daisuke stuck his tongue out in retaliation. "I can open a can o' whoop-ass on you, dude."
The gesture was returned with all due childishness. "Bring it."
Daisuke suddenly raised his voice, gaining the attention of quite a few other strangers as he got up in Yamato's face playfully, standing on his toes. "Aw yeah?! Well you bettah watcho back, cause imma be breakin' it all ovah tha hood, yo."
Yamato couldn't help but laugh. Hard. "Daisuke."
"Watch yo'self, man."
" Daisuke, shut up."
Placing a hand on his hip, the younger boy brought his voice a couple octaves higher. "Oh no you di'nt!"
Yamato stumbled as he cracked up, apologizing weakly to the middle-aged couple he ended up bumping into. "Daisuke, you fucker," he said, once he could breathe, "shut up before you get arrested."
Daisuke just grinned. "I win, though, right?"
Yamato looked at him curiously. "What's your prize?"
Hormones immediately dictated Daisuke's train of thought. He found enough willpower to ignore them and settled for the simplest, announcing, "Take me home."
"Sure." Yamato shrugged. "Probably going to miss a bit of band practice, but..."
Daisuke paused, shoving his hands in his pockets. "You can just tell me the way if you don't want to be late."
Yamato smiled reassuringly. "I know. It's okay."
Daisuke blinked in surprise, unsure of how to respond. He shuffled his feet, staring at his shoes to hide the flush in his cheeks. "Thanks," he said, not noticing that he was pretty much speaking to himself by now. Yamato had already begun heading off in the other direction.
"Daisuke. Are you coming or what?"
The younger boy hurried forward, stumbling after him. "Yeah! Um, yeah. Sorry."
With a fond shake of his head, Yamato led the way, commenting idly as he tossed the other a sideways glance, "You're so weird."
Daisuke grinned sheepishly. "Fo'shizzle, dawg."
"My sanity feels threatened," Iori whispered to nobody in particular, sinking even deeper into the couch.
Takeru mumbled in quiet response, "Join the club."
"I don't want to join the club. I don't want anything to do with the club."
The blonde patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Try to block her out. Think about happy things – open meadows, pink bunnies, rainbows, smilie faces..."
"Not helping!" the younger boy interrupted. He buried his head in his hands, voice muffled. "Why don't we just tell her that Daisuke likes Yamato-san?"
"We've tried. Many, many times. We've failed. Many, many times. And if we try again, we're going to fail again, and I'm mostly likely going to get hit with a knife again because she's going to get angry that we're disagreeing. Again."
Iori sighed. (Again.) He sunk further into the couch. "I can't believe this."
A shrug was his only answer, followed by the soft sound of Takeru's head falling against the cushion. Apparently, he had decided to go back to ignoring whatever was going on around him, leaving Iori alone in a world of crazy. The younger boy sighed and resumed in his attempt to get eaten by the couch cushions.
Yamato headed off to band practice with an anxious, almost giddy feeling in his stomach. Stupid Daisuke. Stupid Daisuke and how he made him laugh at the stupidest things. Stupid Daisuke and his stupid charisma. Stupid Daisuke and how he made Yamato miss him only ten minutes after he had left.
He shook his head. What the hell, Ishida?
Sure, Daisuke was a great kid, sweet, fun to be around, but was thinking about him this much really normal?
And was trying to justify that thinking of Daisuke this much was normal just proving that he was in denial and it wasn't normal?
... wait, what?
"Shut up before you hurt yourself," Yamato muttered to himself as he combed his hand through his hair in frustration, but once again found himself pursuing the same topic again just a handful of seconds later. Maybe he was masochistic.
After a few minutes of careful reflection, he came to the obvious conclusion.
The obvious and very unwanted conclusion.
"What? No! No, no. Fuck, no. He's a guy, he's my little brother's age, totally not my type, he's too much of a friend to even consider— no."
Denial is a pretty ugly place to be, the little voice in his head intoned with an obnoxious cheerfulness, but he promptly shoved it into the dusty recesses of his mind where all the other ignored voices welcomed it solemnly.
He had never been the one to listen to them, anyway.
Somewhere, in a far away land:
"Um, Miyako-san..."
"Christ, Miyako, there are no such things as love potions."
